She Brings Her Home
by LostBerryQueen
Summary: Shelby didn't give Rachel up for adoption at birth. Rachel and Quinn lived across the street from each other as children. Rachel was infatuated with Quinn. Rachel is split apart from her lover and mother. Nine years later she sees them again. Quinn must now bring them all together and help Rachel with her feelings. Faberry romance.
1. Chapter 1: Brave Face On

**Disclaimer: I do not own glee or any of its characters.**

**Chapter One**

Five-year-old Rachel was sitting on the floor pressed against the glass of the large window in their living room. Across the street from her house three girls played enthusiastically together in the yellow yard. The summer sun which had boiled Rachel's brown skin earlier that day, had resigned to rest behind the gray clouds as the day came to a close, but the three children were radiating their own light.

All three danced with grace, but Rachel only had eyes for the blonde girl with the high tight pony tail and frizzy ringlets gently reaching for her face. As she spun in a circle, Rachel tried to catch a better look at her face. It was obscured by movement and laughter, but Rachel had recognized her from the moment she had wandered into the living room. Before this she had been playing with stuffed animals in her room, and although it had been one of her favorite games it had ended with the usual strong sense of loneliness leaving her wanting Shelby's lap. She was sidetracked when a flicker of movement caught her attention and she saw the blonde but wasn't quite sure it was the blonde and needed to look more closely.

The newscast was coming to a commercial break, so Shelby glanced down at Rachel. "Are you okay Rachel?"

"Yes," Rachel said softly, nose still pressed to the window.

"Yes?!" Shelby laughed. "Then why are you sitting on the floor baby?"

Rachel turned. "Mommy I know that girl," Rachel said scouting across the floor on her knees. "She was in the play!"

Rachel sat on the armrest of the couch and Shelby maneuvered her gently into her lap. She hugged her tightly and rested her chin on her shoulder. "Wicked?"

"Yes Wicked," Rachel said impatiently. "She was one of the dancers!"

On cue the blond girl kicked her leg up to her face and raised her arms, as if she was a cheerleader at the top of the pyramid.

Shelby had taken Rachel to watch her first play at the community theater the previous week. She had hoped that Rachel would like it but had been a little surprised yet delighted by how much she had. It must have been in her genes. Shelby still remembered her Musical Theater days, dreaming of making it big on Broadway but that was before Chris, the weed and the needles, the late nights, the Rachel. Rachel her biggest accomplishment. Chris had left her when he found out she was pregnant. Rachel was the dream she had never dreamed in high school or college but she gave her more pride than her ambitions of Broadway ever would have, even if she had achieved them, that she was certain of.

Rachel had watched Wicked avidly while her mom pointed out characters and made comments on their acting. When the flying monkeys danced in sorrowful silence, Rachel was drawn to the expressions of one particular blonde girl, who danced like she was sliding her body through heavy water and pouted like her best friend had just died. She was so graceful...so elegant. She sent shivers down Rachel's spine.

She had begged her mom to buy her a tape of the performance. Shelby who rarely could buy her daughter anything decided to splurge for this special occasion. Rachel watched the tape again and again waiting tensely for the flying monkeys part. Shelby had just thought she watched it so much because she had nothing else to watch and felt guilty again.

"She was one of the flying monkeys!" Rachel repeated excitedly, slurring the words.

"Well why don't you go ask them if you can play with them?" Shelby said encouragingly.

Rachel looked over her shoulder at the girls for a moment, excitement and desire tangling with dread. She looked back at Shelby shyly. "No."

"You don't want to play with them."

"No. I do! I just...what if they don't want to play with me?"

Shelby looked out at the girls across the street. She could see why a child would be intimidated by them. Rachel didn't have many friends. Actually she didn't have any friends, she had barely ever played with other children and Shelby didn't have the money to send her to preschool. She couldn't blame her for being shy, but she would be starting kindergarten next fall and needed to learn how to interact with other children.

"Mommy," Rachel had an idea. "Their new to the neighborhood, remember how when we were new the people in the house next to us brought us some cookies? Maybe you could do that now and bring me with you."

Shelby smiled. Her daughter was smart. She stroked Rachel's hair sadly. "We don't have any cookies baby."

Rachel turned to look at her. "Can we make some?"

"We don't have any batter," Shelby tried to be playful by widening her eyes until they bugged out and Rachel giggled at the funny face.

"I'll tell you what though," Shelby said, relieved that she was able to make her lack of cooking supplies into a joke, "We can still welcome them to the neighborhood. We'll march over there and say 'hi welcome to the neighborhood'" Shelby used a deep manly voice for the last phrase and Rachel laughed again. "And then after we introduce ourselves as Shelby and her absolutely beautiful daughter Rachel," she gave Rachel's stomach a gentle poke and Rachel grinned "there's no way that they won't want to play with you, and if they don't than that's there loss, and we'll find you some other friends another day."

Rachel felt a wave of adoration for her mother. As Shelby took her hand, she felt that nervous dread coming, but drew warmth from Shelby's strong yet gentle hand.

Shelby noticed the look on Rachel's face. "Come on Rachel, brave face on, smile, meeting new people is fun!"

Shelby took long purposeful strides. Rachel allowed herself to be carried by them as they crossed the street. The girls didn't turn to look at them until they were on the grass of the lawn. Rachel braced herself with a smile.

"Hello girls," Shelby said. The girls stopped dancing staring at them suspiciously. The girl with black hair looked annoyed, but the blonde with bangs who stood next to the girl from Wicked, wore a more gentle look of curiosity. The blonde from Wicked (who Rachel could see for sure now was actually from Wicked) wore a frown that made Rachel wish she had just stayed inside watching the news with her mother.

"We just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood, we noticed you were new, I'm Shelby and this is my daughter Rachel."

The girls eyes flicked scornfully to Rachel. Rachel now noticed that she had subconsciously stood slightly behind Shelby's leg. She pressed into Shelby's leg for comfort and Shelby gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

Good manners seemed to win out ('of course the dancer from Wicked would have good manners' Rachel thought) and thankfully the dancing monkey stepped forward.

"I'm Quinn," she said extending a hand for Shelby to shake, "nice to meet you."

Rachel's hand was sweaty when she took Quinn's. "I'm R-Rachel." She said accidentally being redundant.

Quinn smirked. "I know." But then her face broke into a friendly grin. "Your pretty," she said, "do you want to dance with us?"

A smile spread across Rachel's face slowly. "Y-yeah."

"She can't dance with us!" The black haired girl protested. "She's not our friend."

"Yes she is San," Quinn said. "Rachel this is Brittney and Santana."

Brittney smiled and waved at her and Santana shot Brittney a dirty look. Rachel looked down and noticed that Brittney and Santana were holding hands. She suddenly wished she were holding Quinn's hand but some instinct told the five-year-old that she would have to wait until she knew her longer to do this.

Now that Quinn was done shaking hands, she had both placed on her hips. She looked up at Shelby. "You can ring the doorbell if you want," Quinn said. "My mom's in their and will want to meet you."

"Alright," Shelby smiled at the bossiness in Quinn's polite voice. "Rachel are you okay out here for a little while?"

Rachel grinned and nodded.

Shelby went to the front door, inwardly repeating the words of encouragement she had told Rachel earlier 'smile, brave face on'. The split second of surprise on Mrs. Fabray's face was covered quickly by delight and she was welcomed enthusiastically into the home. Mrs. Fabray loved to keep up social appearances, and she needed to actually know the neighbors to be able to throw house parties. Shelby was relieved for the warm mug of tea. She had a sore throat and was out of tea. She was out of everything. She looked out the window and smiled as she watched Rachel try to imitate a leg kick but slip and fall on her back. Quinn helped her up a moment later, although the black haired girl, Santana was laughing. Rachel perfected the leg kick after three more tries, but more importantly she was smiling and laughing, and seemed to be accepted by at least two of the girls. Maybe Shelby wasn't out of everything.

**Thank you so much for reading and please review! **


	2. Chapter 2: A Mother's Job

**Chapter Two**

Rachel sat in her chair in the corner of the 711 drawing a picture of Quinn Fabray's face. People crowded around the slushie machine to the right of her, some commented on how cute she was, but Rachel didn't look up. Quinn's face was so hard to draw. The ponytail for example, how do people draw ponytails, Rachel wondered. And the nose. Quinn's nose was so small and feminine already, how do you get it to look pretty?

The nose on Rachel's Quinn had huge nostrils. Rachel started erasing the picture vigorously letting out a loud frustrated noise and snapping her pencil. A few customers stared but Rachel's eyes flew fearfully to her mother. She wasn't supposed to be loud when mommy was working. Shelby made eye contact with her daughter, handed the customer their change then came over to Rachel's corner.

"What's wrong baby?" She asked.

Rachel felt tears springing to her eyes. "Gah! I can't get it right," she spluttered "...Quinn."

Shelby looked down at the paper and grimaced sympathetically at Rachel. "Hang in their sweetie, I can help you with it when I'm done working, but for now draw something else."

"I don't want to draw something else!" Rachel surprised herself by her public whining.

"Rachel," Shelby warned, she could tell that Rachel was on the verge of a meltdown and she wanted nothing more than to comfort her or take her home for a nap, but already a line of customers had formed. Shelby wiped a few tears roughly from Rachel's face. "Draw a flower and be good so mommy doesn't have to punish you." Shelby said in an authoritative voice and left her sobbing daughter to tend the customers.

Rachel wiped at her tears and did her best to keep her crying quiet. Her head burned with embarrassment at breaking down in public like this.

Suddenly Rachel felt a soft hand on her shoulder and looked up.

"What's wrong Rachel?" Quinn said.

"N-nothing," Rachel replied, hastily trying to cover her drawing.

Quinn pushed her hands away. "Who is that?" Quinn said craning her neck to get a closer look, "is that me?"

Rachel watched in horror but couldn't think of anything to say but the truth. "Yes."

"I love it," Quinn said hugging her. "Its like were best friends. Can I have it?"

"When I'm done, yes."

"Yay! Bring it over to my house."

"Quinn!" Mrs. Fabray called. She had just finished paying for their snacks.

"Coming," Quinn called then turned back to Rachel. "I didn't know your mommy worked here."

Apparently Mrs. Fabray didn't either. Shelby was a little embarrassed to be seen by her new neighbor working at a place like this with her daughter crying in the background.

"Oh yeah." Rachel said.

"Bye. See you later," Quinn said waving.

"Bye," Rachel said. Even though the drawing needed to be perfect since she was giving it too Quinn, Rachel felt strangely calm. Quinn's hug had sent so much happiness and warmth through her. She used the new energy to draw, all the while imagining Quinn hugging her again when she gave it to her.

Shelby was so relieved when she finally made it home after a long day of working. She plopped the grocery bags on the table, and Rachel helped her put the vegetables into the refrigerator.

"Mommy?" Rachel asked when they were done. "Can I go over to Quinn's house? I finished the picture and want to give it to her."

"You finished it?" Shelby said relieved and a little impressed. "Let me see."

Rachel held up the picture of Quinn. The nostrils were still large but Rachel had made the nose a whole lot smaller.

"Its beautiful honey," Shelby said. "Yes, take it over straight away, but make sure to look both ways before you cross the street."

"I will."

"Good." Shelby ruffled her hair and kissed her on the head before Rachel scampered away. Through the screen door Shelby watched Rachel run to Quinn's house and make it there safely, not even tripping as she ran up the stairs. Shelby would have to have a talk with her about running on stairs later, but for now she could take a nice long hot shower then curl up on the coach and watch an adult movie.

Quinn answered the door when Rachel arrived and led her down the stairs to the basement, which she said was the playroom. From upstairs the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Fabray drinking and flirting could be heard but was muffled by the floorboards. Even if Rachel had understood what they were doing, she was too distracted to listen.

She presented the picture to Quinn shyly and smiled when Quinn said "I love it!" But was dissapointed that she didn't hug her.

Quinn was too busy retrieving something from beneath the couch."Here I made it. It's for you."

Quinn had also drawn a picture, but it was much more simple than Rachel's portrait. Two stick figures held hands. One had long hair and bangs and the letters 'R' 'A' 'K' 'E' 'L' were written above it. The other had a high ponytail and the name (this time not misspelled) Quinn was written above it.

"Its you and me." Quinn said pointing to each figure (which was good that she explained it because Rachel couldn't read).

"I love it!" Rachel repeated Quinn's words. Taking the initiative to make her own fantasies come true Rachel hugged her and Quinn hugged her back.

"We'll be best friends forever," Quinn said in a soft voice that sent happy shivers down Rachel's spine.

Rachel stayed at Quinn's so late playing pretend games that Shelby had to cross the street and ring the doorbell to pick her up. Rachel was excited to see her mom and tell her about all of the adventures she and Quinn had but was sad to be leaving. Quinn promised that Rachel could come over again tomorrow even though her parents were in their bedroom 'sleeping' and couldn't verify this. Shelby assured Rachel that even if it wasn't tomorrow she would see Quinn soon. Shelby was even hopeful that if Quinn and Rachel's friendship progressed she could use the Frabrays as babysitters and leave Rachel there while she was working.

After Rachel was washed and all ready for bed in her soft fuzzy pajamas, Shelby snuggled into bed with her and read her a bedtime story. It was about a knight riding to a castle and saving a princess from her evil parents. When Shelby was done reading Rachel looked at her very seriously. "Mommy," Rachel said slowly, "the princess looks like Quinn."

Shelby laughed. "Yeah, your right Rachel she does."

"I want to be a knight one day mommy and save a princess from a castle, but mommy," Rachel looked at Shelby in worry, "the knight in the story was a boy, can knights be girls?"

Shelby hesitated. She knew what a normal mother would say: 'of course knights aren't girls! Knights are boys silly, and besides you don't want to be a smelly old knight, then who will rescue you? The princess is who you want to be, so you can be saved and fall in love.'

At least that's what her mother would have said.

But looking into Rachel's large pleading eyes, and remembering the way she acted around Quinn, Shelby was prompted to say something else. "You can be whoever you want to be, and fall in love with whoever you want to love, and yes, its perfectly okay for girls to be knights and rescue their princesses and fall in love with them. Its even okay to be rescued by a girl knight in shining armor."

Rachel smiled and snuggled down deeper into her blankets. "I love you mommy," she said sleepily.

"I love you too Rachel," Shelby said kissing her on the head and untangling herself from Rachel to turn off the light. She paused at the doorway and surveyed the satisfied expression on Rachel's face. Her eyes were closed, and lips drawn up in the smallest of grins.

When Shelby slid into her own bed the sheets were icy cold. Shelby sighed and closed her eyes, wishing she had a lover to hold her or wake her when the nightmares came.

**Review! More chapters are on the way.**


	3. Chapter 3: From Hand to Hand

**Chapter** **Three**

Shelby was helping the girls pick dandelions out of Quinn's yard to weave into tairas. She plucked a white dandelion and blew the seeds across the lawn.

"Mommy what did you wish for?" Rachel asked giggling.

"Its a secret," Shelby said. "If I told you it wouldn't come true."

Quinn plucked a seed filled dandelion from the grass and made eye contact with Rachel as she scattered the seeds with her breath. "Rachel guess my wish, that way I won't have told you and it will still come true."

"Um..." Rachel said looking up at the sky in thought. "Did you wish for a pony?"

"No silly," Quinn giggled.

"Did you wish to be a famous dancer?"

"That's going to happen either way." Quinn said smartly. "Let me give you a clue," she said inching closer to Rachel, "it has to do with you." Quinn danced her fingers along Rachel's arm and Rachel laughed and shivered at the odd tingling feeling they left on her skin.

"You wished that we'd be together forever!"

"Yay! You got it!" Quinn clapped her hands.

"Okay angels, watch out for the tickle monster," Shelby said, pulling one girl under each arm and tickling their sides. The girls laughed and shrieked trying to get away.

Rachel gasping for air said, "Mommy, your not the tickle monster, your the tickle dragon and me and Quinn are nights."

"Alright mighty nights, watch out for the big scary dragon, Roar!"

The girls rolled on the ground squealing and kicking their legs. So caught up in their fun, no one noticed Mrs. Fabray's car pull into the driveway. Mrs. Fabray stopped on her way to the stairs and looked down at the tangle of bodies on the ground disdainfully. "Thank you Shelby for watching them while I went to the grocery store."

"It was no problem," Shelby said straightening up and pulling a lock of hair out of her mouth. "Well, I have my next shift soon so Rachel and I better be going."

Mrs. Fabray nodded.

"Mommy?" Rachel asked Shelby when they were in the car, "why isn't Mrs. Fabray fun like you?"

Shelby scoffed into her hand in amusement, smiling to herself at her adorable daughter. "Well, some adults are more adult-like than others, they like to be very serious, even around kids." She explained patiently.

Rachel was being very good and quiet all throughout Shelby's shift. At the end of it Shelby bought her a caramel chocolate bar. As she was walking towards Rachel to give it too her, Rachel lifted the paper she had been drawing on too show Shelby.

"Look mommy its you!" Rachel said. "I made it for you."

"Thank you so much Rachel," Shelby said giving her a little hug. "Its beautiful."

"Because your beautiful mommy,"

Shelby squeezed her a little tighter. "I got something for you too," she said releasing her. She handed Rachel the candy bar. "That's for being a good girl while mommy was working."

"Yay, its caramel!"

"What do you say?"

"Thank you mommy!" Rachel hugged Shelby, and as she clutched her daughter she felt a wave of disgust roll through her. What was she doing pretending to be a good mother? Handing out candy bars as if they were hundred dollar bills, or dance lessons. Her parents had ignored her as much as they could while feeling morally okay with themselves, but at least they had given her both. Shelby gave herself a little shake. It must be the heat getting to her. This store must have been the only 711 in existence without air conditioning, and the fan had broke today. Shelby always valued emotions over possessions, that's why she had kept Rachel in the first place. When she had made the decision of putting her daughter over Broadway it had changed her in so many other little ways as well. And who cared if Rachel was overly thankful for a candy bar, she was still a kick-ass mom.

As Shelby walked Rachel to the car she made eye contact with a man. He wore old clothes and hunched over as he walked, but was extremely cute in a gruff way, and young. His hair was clean contrasting with his clothes, and only a light amount of stubble covered his chin. "Hey good-lookin," he said casually when he noticed her staring.

Shelby blinked and continued walking.

"Mommy?" Rachel asked as Shelby helped her fasten her seatbelt over her used but expensive car seat. "Who was that man?"

"No one sweetie," Shelby said, effectively brushing off the strangers compliment.

She saw him in the shop again the next day. He bought a bag of hot cheetos and plunked down a twenty. When Shelby started to hand back some of the money, he said "keep the change" and turned to leave.

"W-wait" Shelby called feeling guilty about the money. He turned back and the sharp look in his eyes told her not to argue. "What's your name?" She said instead.

He gave a small smile which looked more like a smirk. "Daniel."

"I'm Shelby, and thank you."

"Shelby," he said testing the name, "your very welcome indeed."

Daniel started hanging around the 711 a lot, standing outside the store smoking. During one of Shelby's breaks Rachel watched Shelby go outside, grab his cigarette and take a drag, smiling at him like Quinn had smiled at her while she blew the dandelion seeds. Daniel snatched the cigarette back and gave Shelby one of her own. And so Shelby gradually started smoking again, with Daniel on her breaks.

Rachel complained to Quinn how her mommy never talked to her on breaks anymore because she was too busy smoking with Daniel.

"I think cigarettes are gross," Quinn said royally putting a subtle emphasis on the word 'I'. "They make your teeth turn black and fall out." Quinn gave a large smile displaying her gleaming white teeth. "Mommy taught me to brush three times a day, but then mommy's a snob."

Rachel giggled.

Rachel began examining Shelby's teeth closely when she smiled. After Shelby brushed Rachel's teeth, Rachel would ask "mommy you brushed your teeth didn't you?"

"Of course I did. What. Does my breath smell bad?" She blew on Rachel's face and Rachel giggled. It didn't smell bad. It smelled like leaves and peppermint.

Shelby started going out late at night, and leaving Rachel at Quinn's. This continued for three weeks until Shelby came home one night with smeared mascara and tears in her eyes ("Mommy whats wrong?" Rachel had said running to throw her arms around her and comfort her, "nothing sweetie just a hard date I mean day") and Rachel didn't see Daniel at the 711 again.

But Shelby still smoked on breaks.

Rachel came outside one day after working really hard on a drawing of a dandelion and finally perfecting it, only to be neglected attention from Shelby who walked outside as soon as break started without looking back.

"Look mommy look!" Rachel said jumping up and down and waving the paper as close to Shelby's face as she could reach.

"Not now Rachel," Shelby said batting the paper away. She was still fighting a headache. But she batted to hard and accidentally hit Rachel who started crying immediately.

"Oh my gosh Rachel! I'm so sorry!" Shelby dropped her cigarette and bent to examine Rachel. She had to pry Rachel's hands away from her face, and the hurt and betrayal in Rachel's large eyes stung her. It was just a cut lip. Shelby wrapped her arms underneath Rachel's shoulders and Rachel tugged against her. "I'm so sorry Rachel," she murmured, "please forgive me." Rachel sobbed harder but this time allowed Shelby to lift her into her arms, it might have been because she was too weak from crying to stand.

Shelby noticed a spark on the tip of the cigarette she had dropped and stamped it out.

Shelby hugged Rachel to her shoulder and rocked her back and forth. "I'm so sorry Rachel," she said over and over again, rubbing circles on her back "I'm going to make it up to you, I'm going to make everything up too you, I promise."

Rachel clung to her neck and buried her face in her shoulder. Shelby could feel that the stream of tears was ebbing and Rachel slowly stopped shaking, but she held onto her mother even tighter. Shelby finished up her last shift of the day holding Rachel, even though customers stared and her arms and hips were getting sore. When work was over and Shelby put Rachel in her carseat, Rachel was fast asleep, that satisfied grin on her face that made Shelby's sore muscles worth it.

Shelby meant to quit smoking but her aching brain wouldn't allow it. To make herself feel better about it, she got up early to smoke while Rachel was asleep, or stayed up late to smoke after Rachel had already gone to bed, but no longer smoked on her work break. It was taking a tole on her money supply though. The dinner checks that she had split the cost with, with Daniel had already eaten into her savings. Money was so tight that making Rachel skip breakfast and dinner and splitting a can of beans with her in the middle of the day became a regular occurrence. She sent her over to Quinn's as much as she could just so that she could get enough to eat.

Damn Daniel.

But Daniel hadn't attracted her to the cigarette, the cigarette had attracted her to him. Apparently rehab wasn't a lifelong cure.

Rachel's clothes were falling apart as well.

"Mommy my pants ripped," Rachel told her mom while she was working. "Look." Rachel turned around to show her the rip down the back of them that went all the way to the crotch.

"Go sit down honey, and try to keep your legs closed so no one else sees, I'll buy you new ones when I'm done working." Shelby looked down at the cash register, she had no money to take Rachel shopping with. Impulsively, when she gave the next customer change she slid one of the bills into her pocket. She did this every few customers, until she had enough to buy Rachel a new pair of jeans. Rachel twirled around in them happily in the Goodwill dressing room, always so enthusiastic. Swallowing her pride Shelby went by the food bank and got them registered, and was able to bring home a reasonable meal for a five-year-old of macaroni and cheese. They would make it.

Shelby began routinely stealing money from customers; a few dollars here and there a week, but it was enough to start buying new clothes and other things a young girl needed, like lollipops. Shelby felt silly for buying one for Rachel at the checkout line. She was actually pretty sure that second hand stores charged more for them, but she wanted Rachel to experience the normal joys of childhood, like sugar.

Shelby limited herself to one cigarette a day. Every time she saw Rachel smile she reminded herself that this was so much more important than her aches from withdrawal. If Rachel was particularly happy Shelby would even managed to go a whole day without smoking.

What Shelby didn't count on was getting sick. It started out as a simple cold that made her miss three precious days of work when it turned into a fever. Shelby lay on the coach as Rachel pressed cold washcloths to her forehead. "Its going to be okay mommy," Rachel said confidently, "your going to get better soon."

Shelby smiled weakly at her strength. Rachel was so much like her.

Her fever broke and Shelby went back to work. But she was fired.

"You can't miss three days and not so much as call," The manager said. He looked deep into her eyes, "I'm sorry."

Rachel had been sitting in her chair while this exchange took place and heard her mother cussing out the manager all the way from the back room before she burst into the main part of the shop. When she made eye contact with Rachel she stopped yelling. A tear track was on each cheek.

"Come on Rachel were leaving," Shelby said picking her up. She carried Rachel out of the shop but stumbled along the way to the car, nearly falling and landing on top of Rachel but she managed to catch herself. Rachel watched tears slide down her mother's face as she drove home.

At the house, Shelby collapsed on the coach and closed her eyes, tears still streaming out of them. Rachel left without asking, running for Quinn's house. Shelby didn't even look up as the door slammed. She clutched her stomach in pain and moaned.

When Mrs. Fabray answered the door Rachel almost hugged her on accident expecting it to be Quinn who answered the door and so wanting to fling herself into Quinn's arms. Rachel ducked past the shocked Mrs. Fabray without being invited in and ran into Quinn's arms. The impact of Rachel's hug knocked the wind out of her. Quinn slowly put her arms around her and rubbed her back. She looked up at her mother in horror who gave Quinn a small nod.

Rachel didn't notice Mrs. Fabray leaving the house and crossing the street.

Quinn dragged Rachel into the kitchen where she sat her down on a chair. She went to the living room where her dad was watching tv completely unbothered by the events unfolding around him, and ripped a blanket off one of the couches he wasn't using. She brought the pink fuzzy blanket back to Rachel and wrapped her in it, then padded to the microwave to make some hot chocolate.

When it was done she set the mug in front of Rachel. "Drink it." She commanded and waited for Rachel to take a sip. Quinn watched her drink without drinking any hot chocolate of her own. Rachel needed both hands to hold the mug because she was so shaky. When she was done and set the mug down, Quinn reached out across the table and took her hand. The warmth from Quinn's hand traveled through Rachel's body, like a rainbow of colors was spreading through her insides.

They held hands for hours in silence, sending squeezes back and forth across the table, until Shelby knocked on the door to get Rachel.

"Mommy." Rachel sighed. She smiled through her tears when she saw Shelby.

Mrs. Fabray stood behind Shelby, she gave Shelby's forearm a squeeze, then entered her house and closed the door.

Rachel sensed that something was wrong. Shelby was looking down at her but not making eye contact with her, instead she was staring at her forehead. She wasn't smiling like she was happy to see her either, her expression was very serious. "Come along Rachel," she said extending her hand.

When Rachel took it, it felt stiff and unfamiliar.

Rachel walked down the dark steps like she had so many times before, and crossed the dark street. Shelby didn't lead her home. Instead she veered to the side.

Usually Rachel would have asked, 'why are we going to the car mommy?" But this last desperate plea remained unvoiced in her head.

Shelby opened the back door to the car just long enough for Rachel to see that her carseat was gone before slamming it again quickly. Rachel let out a soundless gasp and left her mouth hanging open. Shelby took her to the passenger seat and strapped her in without looking at her, closing the buckle as impersonally as if she were sealing the envelope on a late rent bill.

As they drove Rachel watched the streetlights send yellow light over her mother's large blank eyes. Shelby's expression didn't change the entire ride. Rachel kept her eyes on it, her frozen face like a wax doll in a horror movie, too terrible to look away from. It was a longer ride than Rachel had ever road with her mother.

They stopped in a cold dark parking lot where yellow light glinted off of the wet pavement. Rachel passed a thick blank sign on her way up the walk. It had words, but it was too dark too see them but light wouldn't have changed anything, Rachel had never learned to read.

Inside the building there was a tall desk. The woman holding Rachel's hand spoke in a strange stiff voice to the women behind the counter. A softer smaller hand grabbed Rachel's left one, and Shelby let go of Rachel's right hand. Rachel was passed from large stiff hand to small gentle one. But this was not an accurate metaphor to describe the treatment she received from the second one compared to the first one.

**Nine Years Later**

Rachel felt ridiculous for being nervous about her first day of high school. After attending seven different elementary schools, and four different middle schools, she was used to first days, but somehow they were worse every time. But she wasn't in foster care anymore. Rachel had at long last been adopted by a widow named LeRoy who's former husband Hiram had died in a car crash while driving himself and LeRoy to the adoption agency.

LeRoy was an alcoholic as a result, and had started drinking again after Rachel had lived with him for enough months for the social worker to be off of his back, which was only about two. Teens were so hard to get adopted that the social workers seemed to look the other way when the people who adopted them didn't entirely meet the requirements.

Rachel didn't mind that LeRoy drank, it meant that while he was passed out on the coach she could listen to the new ipod he bought her in peace in her room without being interrupted by his awkward attempts to bond. Rachel wasn't bonding with anyone. But she wanted to stay here, it was easy here, so she needed to stay out of just enough trouble so that LeRoy wouldn't kick her out. Which is why she was nervous about school. If she got bullied too much she would smoke too much. She went into rehab before being adopted by LeRoy, he wouldn't adopt her until at least that problem was sorted out (the hypocrite) but rehab, as Rachel was quickly finding out, was not a lifelong solution.

So Rachel slipped some emergency cigarettes into her bra, zipped her new gray hoodie, caked on her new black eyeshadow, and snagged the lighter out of the kitchen drawer and put it carefully into her backpack. The last thing she needed was her backpack to catch fire.

She wore all new clothes and make-up, but she looked just like she did when she was a foster kid. 'Good' she thought.

The hallways of Mckinley high were larger than middle school hallways, but that was about the only difference. Rachel walked with her hood over her head and eyes cast to the floor, clutching her books tightly to her chest.

She sat quietly through her classes, but she wasn't stupid, at least, not stupid for a girl who had been forced to change schools so many times. She had actually managed to pass middle school, a feet she was secretly proud of. But she never raised her hand in class, she only spoke when she was called on. She particularly hated the first day of classes where you had to introduce yourself to the class and answer some stupid question about yourself like what was your favorite kind of bunny (a himalayan devil she had told the class, the ones with the red eyes).

At lunch Rachel was relieved to find that the library was open. In some middle schools she actually had to go to the Cafeteria first before getting a pass to allow her to use the library. Apparently high school was more friendly to loners, where no library pass was required to be allowed entry. There wasn't any homework from her classes yet, except for the 'getting to know you' surveys that Rachel wasn't going to fill out. She didn't have a polite way to 'describe her family' and she had no memory of ever having a 'favorite color'. So Rachel found an empty armchair as fair away from the librarian as possible and opened a random book and stared at it without reading much. It was about plants, the particular page she had flipped to was about fungi.

It wasn't until Rachel was on her way to sixth period that she was broken out of her depressed-in-school-trance by a flicker of hair and a distantly familiar voice. It took her a moment to realize why she had stopped in the hallway and was staring at the back of a passing blonde girl. Then she heard her voice.

"You have to break up with him Santana, middle school's over and he was a loser even then..."

Rachel would have recognized that voice even without the word 'Santana'.

Quinn Fabray went to William Mckinley High School too.

**Review!**


	4. Chapter 4: Shake On It

**Chapter Four**

For her last two classes of the day, Rachel couldn't pay attention. She was lost in a swarm of memories. Her mind was racing and her heart was beating. She had no reason to feel so nervous, she tried to remind herself. Quinn probably didn't even remember her.

When Rachel thought about Quinn, despite the fear, she was filled with a warm fuzzy feeling. Over the years, out of all the acquaintances she had made and deserted or been deserted by, Quinn was the only one she had entirely enjoyed being around. Friends in middle school had mostly been for show or distraction, and elementary school kids hadn't been too nice either. Rachel had been friends with Quinn simply to be friends with her, and Rachel assumed that the same had been true for Quinn.

At this school, Rachel gathered that Quinn was, at the least, reasonably well liked and at most that girl everyone hated, adored, and talked about more than anyone else. Approaching Quinn was out of the question. It felt dangerous to even think about it. The childhood friendship that Rachel held onto would be thrown back in her face by Quinn as if it was one of those flimsy rubber bracelets, only worn by children.

Rachel wouldn't have her memories ruined. Instead she would preserve them in a theoretical rainbow colored jar in her mind. There were bound to be some other outcasts she could hang out with eventually.

LeRoy was in the kitchen cooking when Rachel got home. The smell of spaghetti sauce hit her nostrils. Rachel smiled weakly.

"How was your first day of school?" He asked, turning.

"It was fine," her voice sounded a little off pitch. Apparently LeRoy was still attempting to bond. Rachel was oddly touched by the simple meal.

They sat at the small round table and ate the noodles quietly. They were the thick slightly wet kind that the sauce had trouble sticking too. Rachel was glad that he didn't try to make small talk. She hated small talk, especially with adults. Rachel forced herself not to eat too quickly. She didn't want to make it extra obvious how much she wanted to be alone in her room right now.

When she was finally done she cleared her dishes from the table but didn't offer to take LeRoy's who had timed it perfectly so he finished eating right after she stood.

Rachel started up the stairs.

"Goodnight!" LeRoy called after her.

Rachel stopped, doing her best impression of a smile before turning around. "Goodnight, LeRoy." She kept as much disdain out of her voice as possible.

In her room she flipped up her hoodie and lay on her bed with her ipod, not bothering to change into pajamas. She listened to rock music late into the night. A few tears slid from her eyes. When she started crying harder, she cranked up the music so that she couldn't hear herself over the beat of the drum and scream of the electric guitar. She missed Shelby so much. Although she never thought about her name or her face anymore, it was why she would cry at night. The memories of Shelby had become this black void in the center of her being, gradually swallowing her from the inside and growing larger as it did.

It wasn't until the end of the first month of school that Rachel saw Quinn again. When she saw her she froze with her hand on her locker door and watched her discreetly. Everyone was watching her.

Quinn was striding down the hallway in her Cheerios uniform, flanked by Brittney and Santana. Coach Sylvester had finished with tryouts and decided on the new members of the cheerleading squad. According to the gossip Rachel overheard later that day, they were the only three freshmen to make it on the team this year.

As Quinn passed by Rachel's locker, Rachel couldn't help but stare more openly as she tried to catch all of the details of Quinn's appearance. Quinn felt the large brown eyes on the side of her neck and she turned her head reflexively.

When Quinn made eye contact with Rachel, something weird happened. A shocked look came across her face and Rachel could hear her think her name as if she weren't just internally screaming 'Rachel!?' but screaming the word directly into Rachel's head, so only Rachel could hear it. Quinn's mouth opened as if she were about to say something and her eyes widened. A sharp dislike came into her eyes and it was the last thing Rachel saw before she turned away, blonde ponytail swishing down the hall.

Rachel turned back to her locker gasping. She clutched her side as if she had just run a long race. A bizarre smile spread across her face. Quinn Fabray had remembered her.

Rachel still had a grin on her face when she walked through LeRoy's door. It was a remnant of the original smile. He wasn't in the kitchen; to Rachel's relief he hadn't cooked dinner for her since her first day of school. Rachel heard the sound of TV accompanied by snoring, so she microwaved one of the vegan pre-prepared meals LeRoy had bought for her and took it up to her room to eat.

She blasted her music as she sat cross-legged on her bed, but still found it hard to concentrate on her math homework. She couldn't help wondering if she would see Quinn again, and what she would do if she did.

She couldn't help playing out a little fantasy in her head:

'Hey Quinn' she would say, casually leaning against the lockers near Quinn's. 'Your name is Quinn right? I think we used to be next door neighbors but I might be mistaking you for someone else' Rachel would say as if she had too many friends to keep track of.

Quinn would smile down at her books in fond amusement. 'Yeah, I think I do remember you...Rachel Corcoran?'

'Rachel Berry' she would correct her.

'Oh, did you get married?' Quinn would ask.

And that's where the fantasy turned weird.

Rachel bent over her math worksheet and decided to fill in the answers with random numbers. When she was done she started doodling music notes on the corner of the page and a treble clef in the center of them, even though she didn't know that the symbol associated with music was called that.

A few days later, Rachel was groggily hurrying to fourth period, her mind not having room to worry about anything besides the geography test she was about to take and the fact that she would probably be late to geography class because it was on the other side of the school from her. She pushed through crowds of people, vaguely aware that the one she struggled through now was muscled and dressed in red letterman's jackets.

"Watch it. "

"Woah there."

Deep voices called out to her indignantly as she brushed passed.

"Its her!" A female voice shrieked.

The next thing Rachel saw was a football player's malicious grin, then she was doused in something freezing that blinded her. It felt so bad that her brain barely registered the laughter erupting around her. She stood there shuddering.

A hand gripped her arm and started dragging her away from the crowd. Rachel allowed herself to be pulled blindly down the hallway.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

A paper towel was swiped over Rachel's eyes and she saw the bright fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Quinn was standing behind her. Rachel made eye contact with her in the mirror, her expression was grim.

Quinn balled up the paper towel and threw it in the trashcan. "I trust that you can get the rest off your face without help?" Quinn said with a little smirk.

"Uh-uh yeah, of course I can," Rachel cranked a long paper towel out of the dispenser and ripped it off indignantly. She started dabbing at her face.

Quinn leaned against the wall and watched her with her arms folded. She seemed annoyed about something. "Your Rachel." Her voice was flat.

"You remembered." Rachel hoped her disappointment at Quinn's lack of enthusiasm didn't show through in the waver in her voice. "We used to be next door neighbors when we were little...best friends."

Rachel regretted saying the last two words, but Quinn just nodded.

"Look Rachel, I'm sorry about what happened today," Quinn said without much feeling, "but you seriously need to change something girl, if you don't want it to happen again, and I wouldn't advise going to the rest of your classes today, unless you brought a change of clothes."

"I-I don't understand," Rachel said fighting tears. (She hadn't broken down in school in all her nine years of being bullied and wasn't about to now, especially not in front of Quinn). "I didn't do anything to stand out, I kept my head down I-"

"Your a loser," Quinn cut across her simply. "And losers get slushied at Mckinley, that's just school policy."

Rachel couldn't believe that she couldn't believe Quinn was being so mean to her. She should have known this would happen.

"But," Quinn said dragging out the syllable lazily. "There is a way you can stop being a loser," and for the first time in nine years Quinn grinned at Rachel, that interested yet mischievous grin she gave her when she had an idea. "Join the Cheerios."

"What?!" Rachel said. "Quinn, no, come on, e-even if there were still tryouts, which they're not, the Cheerios would never accept me, even I know that Coach Sylvester is a beast and I don't even have any friends at this school."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Rachel face it, you'll never be anything at this school unless you join the Cheerios, and how will that make me look when I just rescued you from a crowd of hungry sweaty football players who like to get even meatier than they already are by feasting on innocent insecure goth girls."

"I'm not goth."

"See! That right there. Another reason why you should join: everyone thinks your goth."

It was Rachel's turn to roll her eyes.

"Please Rachel! Your a good dancer."

"When I was five," Rachel brushed off the compliment, but her eyes couldn't help glowing a little. Quinn was begging.

"I bet your still a good dancer."

Rachel tried not to let herself be swayed. She knew that Quinn must have an ulterior motive. "Well, even if that were true Coach Sylvester will never let me tryout so it doesn't matter anyway..."

"She will if I ask her too. I promise."

"Fine. If you can get Sylvester to let me tryout I'll do it, but that's not saying I would even pass the tryouts."

"Shake on it." Quinn said holding up her hand. Light glinted off of her shiny nails with their clear nail polish. "And promise that you won't fail on purpose."

"Deal." Rachel said and took Quinn's hand.

Quinn let go of Rachel's hand and with a tilt of her head and a smile she left Rachel standing alone in the bathroom, twenty minutes late to a class that she wasn't going to attend.

Rachel was smiling too though. She was such an idiot. Quinn already had her wrapped around her strong yet feminine finger.


	5. Chapter 5: Someday

**Chapter Five**

Quinn leaned against the locker next to Rachel's. Rachel's heart skipped a beat when she saw her, but she kept her eyes on her books a second longer to regain her calm.

"Guess what?" Quinn said.

"You've came to your senses and realized that Santana's a total bitch?" Rachel had seen Santana getting into the orange curly-haired kid's face earlier that day, threatening to shove his head in a toilet if he tried to harass Brittney again with his stupid camera for his video blogs.

"No, your such a smart ass Rachel, and Santana's really nice once you get to know her. Just really protective of Brittney...well all her friends really, but Brittney more than anyone else...but what I came here to tell you is extremely obvious: I got Coach Sylvester to let you try out."

Rachel closed her locker and started walking towards class, Quinn followed.

"But there is one condition though, I have to work with you after school to make sure you know enough to make it onto the team with me. Your tryout's next week Monday, so, you should start preparing for it today, can you come over to my house after school? You'll have to sit through Cheerios practice first though, but Coach Sylvester has agreed to let you watch."

"Yeah, meet me at my locker after seventh period."

"Alright," Quinn said smiling at the subtle assertiveness in Rachel's voice.

Rachel smiled back and then they parted ways to go to class.

Nervousness climbed up Rachel's stomach as she followed Quinn towards Cheerios practice. Quinn told her to wait in the gym while she changed so Rachel took a seat on the empty bleachers. She was tempted to sit high on the row farthest away from the gym floor, but she didn't want to look that repulsed and afraid to be here, so she sat in a row somewhere towards the middle, but more towards the front rows.

Coach Sylvester was the only person in the gym. She was arranging objects with her back to Rachel. "Hello Rachel," she said without turning.

Coach Sylvester was allowing Rachel to tryout only as a favor to Quinn who had snuck into the principles office and stolen a tape from him that he had made of Sue to blackmail her, he had apparently gotten tired of Coach Sylvester always being the one to threaten him. Coach Sylvester knew that Quinn was a valuable player, both on the team and for, ah, running other errands she needed to get done. So she wanted to keep her happy. She was hoping though, that if she could scare Rachel enough by making the Cheerios do a particularly hard workout today, Rachel would change her mind about wanting to be on the team.

"Hi," Rachel squeaked. "I-I mean, hello."

Coach Sylvester turned and smiled up at her. It wasn't exactly a friendly smile, it was more amused than friendly. "Quinn's told me a lot about you."

"She has?" Rachel didn't know what Quinn would know about her too tell.

"Yes, she has. But don't worry Rachel, you don't need to be nervous yet."

Rachel smiled uncertainly.

"Actually you shouldn't be nervous at all, you should be terrified." With that Coach Sylvester picked up her megaphone and addressed the cheerleaders who were now slowly filing out of the locker room. "Alright girls, look alive, hurry up. We've got a tough workout today and if your muscles aren't burning at the end of it like you were just shot all over your body by a drunk redneck with a rifle then your doing it wrong! I won't have lazy people on this squad, that's what golf club is for."

A groan rose up from the crowd of girls.

"No whining!" Coach Sylvester yelled sharply. "You girls are all lucky to even be on this squad."

Rachel watched the cheerleading practice with her knuckles whitening against the bleacher as she gripped it and her eyes wide. She was leaning back slightly, as if her body was trying to escape Coach Sylvester's loud voice as she yelled at the girls all through practice.

Rachel left the gym at the end of practice with her ears ringing, and her mind full of doubt. When Quinn had offered to help her with the tryouts earlier that day, she had actually begun to think that she could do this, but after seeing just how harsh Coach Sylvester really was, she knew that there was no way that she could do this. "Quinn-" she began but Quinn cut her off, knowing from the look on her face what she was about to say.

"You can do this Rachel. It looks so much harder than it is, and besides, you'll have me to teach you."

Rachel gave a small smile at the affectionate tone in Quinn's voice, but she shook her head. "There's no way that this is going to work."

"You can't back out now Rachel, you promised."

"Fine, but I'm not going to pass this audition."

"Yes you are, you just have to have a positive attitude. And," Quinn smiled in amusement, "its not an audition, its a tryout, like, your trying something out."

They had to walk to Quinn's house, because both of her parents were at work. It was a lot longer of a walk than the path Rachel took to her own house, and Rachel found herself sweating a little by the time they made it to Quinn's neighborhood. Rachel estimated that the walk was about three miles, while the walk to her own house was just two. This must have been why Quinn was so thin, Rachel decided as her eyes absentmindedly traveled down her figure.

LeRoy lived in a pretty nice neighborhood, but Quinn's was even more fancy. Her house was lightly colored and spacious. There were large windows along the back walls.

Quinn led her down the stairs to a basement filled with blue mats, a treadmill, and other workout equipment. The air was much cooler down here.

The first thing Quinn had Rachel do was stretch. When Rachel didn't understand the position Quinn would guide her arms into the right place or press gently but firmly on her stomach and back. Rachel had to suppress a shiver every time Quinn touched her, even though her hands sent warmth into her body wherever they touched.

Rachel sometimes purposefully did the stretch wrong so Quinn would touch her. But with some stretches Rachel tried to get it right the first time, a little afraid to have Quinn touch her again even though it felt good. Like when Quinn held Rachel's ankle and helped her stretch her leg up to her face, it took Rachel an incredible amount of self-control to keep from moaning.

Quinn did however notice the expression on her face and smirked. "Good," Quinn said holding onto her ankle a little longer than necessary before slowly letting it down. "You're already very flexible. Other leg."

After they were done stretching Quinn slowly worked her through her first routine, which was similar to the one Rachel saw them doing in practice.

Rachel caught on quickly, encouraged by Quinn's simple words:

"Come on."

"You can do it."

"Push a little harder."

And her praise:

"That's it."

"You got it."

"Good job."

There was a concentrated fury in Quinn's eyes as they worked. Her eyes moved over Rachel's body strategically.

When they were done Rachel's body was drenched in sweat and she was a little flustered. But she panted in satisfaction.

Quinn gave her a small grin and a nod. She handed her a stack of videos. "Here, take these home, watch them and practice the routines on them in the morning before you go to school. And then after school, you get to work with me."

As Rachel lay awake in bed that night listening to music, she set her alarm for 5:00 AM, so she would be up an hour before school started. She forced herself to take out her headphones after a few more songs and turn her ipod off. She was still breathing differently than she was before the workout with Quinn. Rachel smiled bravely into the darkness. She wasn't going to let Quinn down.

Quinn continued to teach Rachel new moves and drill her on the routines. If Rachel was late to school, it was no longer because she had overslept but because she took too long in the shower after a workout. Eventually, Quinn chose a routine for Rachel to use for the tryouts and had her work solely on that one.

Even though Quinn made sure Rachel had it down by the time Monday rolled around, Rachel was still nervous before she went into the gym for the tryout.

Quinn held Rachel's forearms, trying to send her strength through the firm grip. "You can do this Rachel, I know you can."

Rachel was shaking. Her eyes were large like she was about to start crying and her expression was hopeless. Quinn couldn't stand it. Some reflex in her brain switched on, and before she knew what was happening Quinn reached forward and kissed Rachel. Quinn pulled back quickly, not giving Rachel time to kiss her back. She scanned Rachel's face frantically for signs of disgust.

Rachel looked shocked, but she had stopped shaking. As her eyes remained on Quinn, lust lingered in the depths of them. Her mouth was now graced with the hint of a grin.

Quinn smiled awkwardly.

"Thanks," Rachel said softly.

As Quinn watched Rachel walk into the gym, worry filled her as her eyes slid over Rachel's back. She hadn't meant to do that. She had wanted to though for a while, but it was a subconscious wish. As her eyes had traveled over Rachel's body when she danced in their training sessions, instincts in her body had burned with the desire to kiss her. But she would never actually do that in real life. Realistically speaking she barely even knew Rachel. And then there was the darker thought, even though Quinn was ashamed of thinking it: what if Rachel told someone?

Of course, another nasty voice laughed in her head: who would Rachel even tell?

Quinn gave herself an internal shake. She really cared about Rachel, that was all she knew, and she wasn't going to do anything to jeopardize their friendship, and she really hoped that she hadn't already did.

Quinn's kiss filled Rachel with fire as she did the routine and she preformed it better than she ever had. She didn't even flinch when Coach Sylvester talked to her.

Rachel had always been a little confused about her sexuality. Over the years, she had learned to pick a guy in each school that she found friendly and good-looking and tell people that he was her 'crush' when they asked. But she had always been secretly obsessed with a girl, usually a different one every year. She had never understood what the obsessions meant. But she did now, and this filled her with a new kind of self-confidence that she had never experienced before.

Plus Quinn had kissed her! She had always wondered if the love she felt for Quinn was unrequited, but now, there was a possiblity that Quinn loved her back. Or would come to love her someday.


	6. Chapter 6: Fix It

**Chapter Six**

Coach Sylvester hated to admit it, but Rachel's tryout was too good to not let her onto the team. All throughout her tryout, Quinn waited for her nervously outside the gym. When she saw Rachel, she wasn't sure that she should have stayed. But when Rachel met Quinn's eyes a large smile spread across her face and she ran to hug her.

Quinn was knocked back slightly by the force of Rachel's body colliding against her's. "Oh."

"Thank you so much Quinn for all your help with everything."

Quinn relaxed and smiled, hugging her back. For now Rachel didn't seem upset about the kiss, but perhaps that was just because she was too distracted by her successful tryout. "You're still the same old Rachel aren't you?" Quinn said, still remembering the last time Rachel had knocked the breath out of her with a hug. "If you hug me like that a third time you might accidentally kill me."

Quinn regretted her words instantly. Rachel looked up at her in sadness and pulled away. Quinn mentally cursed herself. She shouldn't have been so stupid as to bring that up. Quinn had never known what happened to Rachel after the last night they saw each other as small children, but she knew the memory must have been unpleasant for her, she had been crying after all. Quinn knew that now might not be the best time for this, but she had already brought it up, and she couldn't fight her curiosity any longer.

"Rachel what happened after that night?" Quinn couldn't prevent her voice from becoming slightly higher on the word 'night'. She had tears at the back of her throat. "All I know is I never saw you or Shelby again, just a truck that came by to pick up your things. My mom told me you guys moved away, but I always felt like there was something off about that story, something I was missing."

"Yeah well, something big did happen," Rachel didn't know if she could bring herself to say the words aloud, she hated talking about it. She looked into Quinn's glistening, empathetic eyes. There was so much worry in them. It somehow made everything so much worse, so much more real, and all the emotions that Rachel was sure she had severed from her existence were flooding back to her. Overwhelmed, Rachel started sobbing. She covered her face with her hands.

"Rachel," Quinn said softly. She pulled Rachel into her arms gently, guiding Rachel's head to her shoulder. "Its going to be okay," Quinn murmured rubbing circles on her back.

Rachel covered Quinn's Cheerios uniform in tears. Quinn's arms were so soft, it was like being encircled in a ring of butterflies that all smelled of pollen and grass. Quinn's scent was sweet, yet there was something deeper to it as well, more grounding.

Without being asked, Rachel tried to speak up through her tears. "She. Left'd-ed me." Rachel gasped, her words garbled. "Shelby." She forced the last word out.

"Oh Rachel," Quinn said knowing she would gain a better understanding when Rachel calmed down and could tell her more details. "I'm so sorry."

Rachel put her head down on Quinn's shoulder, the loudness of her crying picking up again. Quinn placed a hand on the back of her head and held it there for a little while, then continued rubbing her back. Rachel raised her head. "Foster Care," she spit out.

Quinn's eyes widened in horror, Rachel actually stating the words brought all of the stereotypes of how horrible Foster Care could be to her mind. She was glad that Rachel couldn't see her face, for fear that it would have made her feel worse somehow. Perhaps Rachel's life in Foster Care wasn't all bad, maybe it was just the pain of losing Shelby that was fueling her tears.

Rachel's crying continued a while longer before she managed to get a hold of herself. Quinn continued to hold her as her tears slowed. She didn't know how long she held her for, but it didn't feel like long enough. The part of her that was able to get past the fact that Rachel seemed to be in excruciating emotional pain, jumped up in down inside her and whooped at being able to hold her like this. When Rachel finally pulled away Quinn had to suppress her disappointment before it reached her face.

"I'm sorry," Rachel said wiping at the snot and tears on her face hurriedly.

"What, are you trying to apologize for having emotions?" Quinn teased lightly.

Rachel looked away and continued wiping at her tears.

Quinn put a hand on Rachel's shoulder and looked deep into the eyes that weren't meeting hers. "Foster care would suck." She said prompting her into conversation.

Rachel laughed still wiping salt water off of her eyelashes. "It did," she said looking down, "for the most part."

Quinn studied her carefully.

Rachel sniffed. "But that's all over now. What matters now," Rachel said finally looking up and meeting Quinn's eyes with a watery smile, "is that were together," Rachel crawled two fingers up Quinn's arm, "in maybe more ways than one?" Rachel cocked an eyebrow hopefully.

"Yeah," Quinn laughed nervously. "I mean if you wanna be." She said hoping Rachel and her were on the same page.

Rachel laughed and kissed Quinn on the cheek. "I would, you know, do it properly but my lips probably still taste like tears."

"Yeah, totally," Quinn said smiling and nodding and not being able to think of much else to say.

"Its totally not sexy," Rachel said looking down.

"No," Quinn said backtracking, "it is."

To prove it Quinn leaned in and kissed her. And Rachel kissed her back. Even though the kiss was incredibly wet and tasted like tears, Quinn was too happy to care.

When they pulled back the nagging fear grabbed Quinn again. "But, don't like, tell anyone," Quinn blurted out.

"Yeah," Rachel said nodding and smiling. Trying to pretend that was obvious. "Of course not."

Quinn was too busy letting out a sigh of relief to notice the hurt in Rachel's eyes.

At Cheerios practice over the next few weeks, Coach Sylvester was intentionally hard on Rachel. Even though she did so well on her tryout, Sue wanted to test her. A small part of her still wished that Rachel would quit the team. She was a good athlete, but Sue knew an emotionally fragile person when she saw one, she had been tormenting teens for enough decades to have acquired this skill. And emotionally fragile students broke down when it really counted. Like performances.

Rachel wouldn't just leave practice breathless from exhaustion, she would also leave it breathless from stress.

As they opened they're lockers before they changed, Quinn would look at Rachel in sympathy and guilt. If it weren't for her Rachel would have quit the team by now. She was a good cheerleader, but she got no joy out of it. If Rachel wasn't on the team though, Quinn would have no excuse to be seen with her in the halls. The other cheerleaders shunned Rachel, because she had been on the receiving end of too many of Coach Sue's cruel jokes. But Quinn could always spend time with her on the pretense of making sure the socially outcasted yet talented cheerleader didn't quit the team. Most of the girls liked it because it allowed them to treat Rachel like shit without worrying that she would leave the team.

Quinn knew that Rachel needed something else to make her happy. Another place where she actually felt accepted. Otherwise she might break under the pressure, and end up not just deserting the Cheerios, but Quinn as well out of resentment. Cheerios practice had put a certain strain on their relationship. Rachel's voice would always be a bit flat while she talked to Quinn and their kisses were always brief and without much emotion.

Desperation had already set over Quinn by the time she found the solution. A container of deodarant had broken open in her locker and spilled white powder all over the clothes Quinn had brought to change into. And they weren't cheap clothes either.

"Shit, shit, shit." Quinn looked over the mess frantically. She couldn't wear them now, she would have to leave school in her Cheerios uniform, which would only heighten people's opinion of her that she was a snob who wanted to flaunt her position as head cheerleader of junior varsity.

She could at least try to wash them off so they didn't stain.

She heard a sound that made her stop on her way to the showers (and saved her clothes from becoming anymore ruined than they already were).

It was the swan-like sound of singing, so beautiful that Quinn didn't immiedately recognize the song. She stood there captured by the music, which stopped every now and then when the singer got water in her mouth or when it was replaced by the click of a shampoo bottle opening.

Finally Quinn realized what the name of the song was. Lost in thought and sad memories, Quinn barely noticed when the water turned off.

The girl stepped out of the shower and froze when she saw Quinn. Hastily she grabbed a towel off the stack (which was about a foot away from her) and wrapped it around herself.

"Rachel?!" Quinn said in shock and mild approval. "I didn't realize you were still here."

Rachel rushing out of the locker room after practice without saying goodbye had become commonplace.

"Yes well, I just wanted sometime alone to think." There was a not so subtle emphasis on the word 'alone'.

"I didn't know you could sing," Quinn's eyes were traveling up and down Rachel's now covered body.

Rachel blushed and pulled the towel around her more tightly. "I really didn't mean for anyone to hear that, that's why I waited for everyone to leave before showering, or at least thought they had left."

"No, you don't understand Rachel, you have a really good voice," Quinn took a step toward her annoyed girlfriend in the excitement that she felt at finally having a way to get back to her.

Rachel didn't say anything, but Quinn swore her body and eyes softened a little before she flounced behind a different shower curtain where she had stowed her clothes.

Rachel came out dressed a moment later, but the buttons on her shirt were croaked and Quinn had to resisted the urge to fix them.

"Rachel," Quinn said, too excited to wait very long, "I heard about this new club a bunch of kids were making with the Spanish teacher, and at first I thought it was really stupid, because I can't sing. But its called glee club and I really think you should join."

Rachel followed Quinn to the other side of the locker room slowly.

Quinn bent to gather her belongings.

"I'm not joining glee club." Rachel said defiantly.

"Why not?" Quinn looked up at her curiously.

Rachel still seemed upset. "Because I-I can't sing in front of people." Rachel looked down. "I have stage freight," she said softly.

Quinn burst out laughing but stopped quickly at the look Rachel gave her. Quinn pressed her school books to her chest. "But how can you have stage freight, your an amazing singer, and you preform at Cheerios practice everyday."

Apparently Cheerios practice was the wrong thing to bring into the conversation, because Rachel looked down again. "That's different, and I would appreciate it if you would respect my limits and understand that this is just something I can't do."

Rachel turned to leave but Quinn grabbed her hand. "Rachel wait."

Rachel kept her eyes down as Quinn held onto her.

"I miss you Rachel," she found that tears were in her eyes. "I miss us, the way things used to be when we were happy together."

Rachel almost pulled away and left Quinn sitting there alone. Almost. But then she looked up and saw the tears in Quinn's eyes and remembered how Quinn had comforted her about Shelby. Rachel's heart ached.

"Fine. I'll do it." Rachel spoke quietly but bravely. "But only if you audition with me."

Quinn started to smile and as her cheek raised it knocked a tear out of her eyelid. She forced herself not to argue. It was worth humiliating herself in front of a bunch of glee losers if it meant she fixed things with Rachel.

Quinn nodded and brushed the tear off of her face.

Rachel smiled and rubbed the palm of Quinn's hand with her thumb gently.

**I don't want to give too much away, but Shelby will be back soon.**


	7. Chapter 7: Solo

**Chapter Seven**

The glee club had only existed for a few weeks, but Mr. Schuester was already feeling optimistic. He had a great group of kids. They were all hardworking, driven by a desperate desire to prove themselves and an underlying brokenness. The kids' voices were as unique as their personalities, so they really balanced each other out. Their sound was full, rounded, complete. Mr. Schue was even beginning to convince himself that it didn't matter that they didn't have enough members to compete at sectionals. That wasn't what he wanted them to be about. He wanted them to be a community, a supportive family, and perhaps competitions would only cause conflict, shaking loose the bonds that were slowly forming between the members. But he still couldn't shake that other feeling. That need for a goal to reach, for a purpose.

Rachel and Quinn came to the choir room to talk to him after glee rehearsal. Mr. Schuester was just coming down from the high he felt after listening to his group singing in unison, already better than they were their first week of practice. The sound of the door handle turning broke him out of his thoughts. He looked over expecting to see Tina, arguably his strongest singer. She would often come to him with song suggestions, or to chat, mainly about other students and their singing capabilities. Although she was usually shy and had a stutter, being the lead female singer of the glee club had given her the confidence to form a relationship with Mr. Schuester that was closer than she had ever been to a teacher before. Usually it was only the popular or outgoing students who made friends with their teachers. Having Mr. Schuester as a friend-teacher made Tina feel more normal.

When he saw the two girls in Cheerios uniforms, a slight frown crossed his face. "No, I am not disbanding the glee club, " he called. "So, I don't mean to be rude, but if Sue sent you, just leave now."

Rachel and Quinn stopped in there tracks and exchanged a worried glance.

Rachel, perhaps because she felt insulted or maybe out of the need to defend Quinn, found the courage within herself to step forward. "Actually Mr..."

"Schuester." Will said.

"Actually Mr. Schuester, me and Quinn came here to talk to you about auditioning."

"Auditioning?" Will looked from Rachel to Quinn's face. He couldn't find anything sinister there. The two faces were dominated by apprehension. "Well," He said slowly. He swallowed and managed to force a smile. "The glee club is always happy to welcome new members, why don't you show me what you got." He gestured to the open stage.

"R-right, right now?" Rachel craned her neck forward slightly in disbelief. She exchanged another worried look with Quinn. "Mr. Schuester, we didn't prepare anything yet, we just came here to ask about when-"

"Oh, alright," Mr. Schuester waved them off. He gave himself an internal shake. He had to give every student a fair chance, and even if this hadn't been so deeply ingrained in his moral code, it was also school policy. He was allowing Sue to make him become paranoid, and he decided that needed to end here. "We can squeeze your audition in on our Tuesday rehearsal next week, be at the choir room at three thirty and-"

"Mr. Schuester we have Cheerios practice," Quinn spoke up for the first time.

"Alright," Mr. Schuester said, a remnant of the glare returning to his eyes. "Wednesday then."

He glanced at Rachel with a slightly less harsh expression. "I didn't get your name."

"Rachel, Rachel Berry."

Mr. Schuester scribbled something down on his clipboard. "And your last name, Quinn?"

"Fabray."

Mr Schuester wrote Quinn's name down and didn't say anything else. They took this as a cue to leave.

Rachel breathed a sigh of relief once they were outside the choir room. "Wow, I didn't expect him to be so hostile."

"Its my fault," Quinn apologized. "I should have remembered to have us change out of our uniforms first. Coach Sylvester isn't exactly on great terms with most of the teachers. I just didn't even think of it. I didn't expect her to hate even the Spanish teacher."

"Its okay," Rachel said. "If we had changed he might not have even still been there by the time we got there. Besides, it all worked out, I mean at least we got the audition."

"Yeah, but now he already has a bad first impression of us. That's exactly what you don't want for trying out for something. He'll just be looking for reasons to not let us on the team."

"First of all, its not a tryout," Rachel teased. "And secondly, when has Quinn Fabray ever not gotten what she wanted?"

"You do have a good point there," Quinn laughed and Rachel giggled with her and some of the tension and nerves left them through the noise.

On Wednesday, Quinn made sure neither of them wore their Cheerios uniforms to school. Together Rachel and Quinn decided on their clothes so that they would be coordinated, and look sophisticated. Quinn felt weird as she entered school in the type of clothes that she would normally wear to the mall. She could already imagine what the other Cheerios would be whispering to each other about her.

She wanted to get through the day without being noticed. Perhaps for the first time in her life. Well, at least the first time in her high school life. Throughout elementary school she had been bullied because of the glasses she had to get right before she started kindergarten, and the chubbiness she had acquired after Rachel left. Lucy Caboosey they had called her. She hadn't even gone by the name Lucy in preschool. But in elementary school it had been on the stupid teachers' roll call and she had been too shy to speak up and change it. And she couldn't tell everyone her name was Quinn when they already thought it was stupid Lucy. At least not until middle school, when she finally did speak up. It wasn't until middle school, when she was reunited with her best friends from preschool, Santana and Brittney, that she had regained her position as Quinn, the graceful dancer, and the popular head bitch in charge. And had never wanted to shrink into the shadows again. Except today.

"Hey Quinn!" One of the senior members of the Cheerios called out to her as she made her way to first period. "You quit the squad or something?"

Quinn did her best to ignore her.

Thankfully, she was soon flanked by Santana and Brittney. Who were wearing their cheerleading uniforms.

Santana looked her up in down in concern. "Damn, I can't believe you actually decided to do it."

"Do what?" Brittney asked absently.

"Audition for that stupid, stupid, glee club," Santana said. "Remember Britt?"

"Oh yeah, sorry I forgot." Brittney said. "I thought you were just protesting the fact that fat people can't be cheerleaders. Or cats. Poor Lord Tubbington, his dream of being at the top of the pyramid will never be accomplished."

Santana and Quinn laughed. Brittney had an odd sense of humor, that not many understood. But they, her closest friends, had the privilege of getting all her of her strange jokes. It was just one more thing that made the gentle cat-loving blonde more adorable. She was not stupid like everyone said.

"Well, good luck on the audition," Brittney said, as she and Santana turned the corner and headed for a different hallway than Quinn, "and if you ever want to protest for Lord Tubbington's sake, just tell me and I'll protest with you."

Rachel also felt nervous about the audition. She however, did not get any negative comments on her lack of uniform. She was as invisible as ever.

Rachel didn't pay attention in class. Instead she mentally rehearsed the song she was going to sing. It was a duet. Her and Quinn's voices sounded great on it, flowing together smoothly. Quinn had a pretty voice. It wasn't quite as powerful as her own, but it was pretty in a more simplistic sense.

She was so nervous. It felt like bugs were crawling up her wrists because her hands were numb. Why oh why had she ever let Quinn talk her into this? It was just one more failure to add to her long, long, impressively long list.

The day seemed to be on super-speed-fast-forward-mode, and soon enough Rachel was sitting at the end of seventh period, staring at the clock and counting the minutes until it ended. Willing the minutes to go slower.

When the bell did ring, Rachel took an extra second before standing up from her seat.

'Come on, come on, come on, you can do this,' she thought all the way out to the hall, and to their meeting place that they had decided on earlier, Quinn's locker.

Quinn wasn't there at first, so she started pacing back and forth over the small spot.

Quinn smiled weakly through the crowd when she finally did see Rachel, and rushed over.

"Rachel your so nervous," she said continuing to smile as she looked over Rachel's quivering body.

"You are too," Rachel retorted through slightly vibrating teeth.

Quinn laughed melodiously. It was true that she was focusing on Rachel's nerves in order to stifle her own. "Your right, I am." But she managed to maintain her toothy smile as she held out her arm, as if her own nerves only amused her. "Come on, let's go."

Giving her a giddy smile, Rachel hooked her arm around Quinn's. After a few steps Rachel stumbled and Quinn had to hoist her up to keep her from falling.

"Careful there," Quinn said. She stopped walking and turned to face Rachel. "Do I need to kiss you again to keep you from killing yourself with nerves?"

"I think you may," Rachel replied with shinning eyes.

Quinn made to move her head towards Rachel's then stopped abruptly. Remembering where they were. Quinn looked around frantically, but the students passing by were walking just as quickly as they had been before, giving no clue as to whether they had any idea what the two girls chatting near the wall had been about to do.

"Er, but, after the audition," Quinn said hastily. After glee club was over the school would be practically empty, so they would have no trouble finding a bathroom stall to make out in privately. "Have you ever heard of after stage nerves? They're so much more worse than the before performance kind, And, uh, a lot more dangerous to your health as well. You wouldn't want to trip and fall after you've already performed." Quinn tried to joke, but disappointment was already weighing down Rachel's eyes.

'Well,' Quinn thought in an attempt to comfort herself. 'At least her disappointment seems to have distracted the anxiety out of her.'

Quinn took her hand and gave her a soft smile, trying another tactic. "We both know that you can do this Rachel, if anyone's going to mess up its me." Quinn was even speaking completely honestly. Almost. Rachel did obviously have a better voice than her, but Quinn cared so little about the opinions of the people in the room that she had an advantage where nerves were concerned. She was only nervous for Rachel, and for their relationship, and for what Rachel messing up the audition might do to it.

They were at the choir room door now. Quinn held her hand on the door handle. "Are you ready?" She asked slowly.

Rachel nodded, still vibrating. Quinn took both of her hands in her own and gave them a squeeze. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, Quinn let go of Rachel's hands and opened the door.

"Ladies! Welcome!" Mr. Schue said with a broad smile, arms wide. But his voice sounded oddly distant to Rachel, as if he was speaking to them through water.

He directed them to take a seat, and Rachel stumbled, nearly falling before she sat down, but managed to catch herself. A few snickers crackled through the water. Rachel felt her cheeks burning, but she was pretty sure they had been burning since she entered the room, as if she were in a gigantic furnace.

Even though they weren't members yet, Mr. Schuster allowed them to join in on the warm-ups, telling them it would help prepare their voices for the audition.

Rachel almost wished that they had gotten the audition over with first. Her throat felt like sandpaper and the dizzy feeling like she was about to pass out only increased as time past. The shitty warm-up only confirmed, in Rachel's mind, that she was going to fail this audition.

"Alright, Quinn and Rachel," Mr. Schuester said finally (and in an annoyingly upbeat tone): "Your up."

When Rachel stepped out onto the makeshift stage, the choir room floor, it was like a bucket of cool water had been thrown over her. All of her senses aligned and she felt an incredible calm.

She shot Quinn a small grin. Quinn, who had been watching her cautiously gave a small uncertain smile in return.

Quinn nodded at the pianist. "We're ready."

The intro to the song began to play.

Rachel felt relaxed at first, a little of her nerves coming back to her and crawling up her arms. Then suddenly it hit her. It felt like something squishy had been wedged into her throat, restricting her airflow, and, Rachel knew, making it impossible for much more than a squeak of noise to come out.

Quinn looked over at Rachel and knew immediately from her expression that something was wrong.

The note signaling Rachel to begin was played, but Rachel just opened her mouth and no sound came out.

Quickly, Quinn took Rachel's hand and began singing Rachel's solo a beat after it was supposed to have begun. It was a cheerful song, chosen to help Rachel with her nerves, so Quinn swayed to the rhythm and shot encouraging smiles at Rachel. Rachel's part was decidedly harder than Quinn's and required a larger vocal range. Quinn did her best to stay on key, and changed or edited out notes that she couldn't hit.

Rachel kept her eyes on Quinn's. She started swaying to the beat of the song with her. She swallowed a couple times, willing her throat to relax. When the part of the song where Rachel and Quinn were supposed to sing together came, Rachel opened her mouth and managed to keep herself from jumping at the sound that came out. After a few seconds, she felt like she was listening to someone else sing, like on the radio, and pretended that she was. She listened to the sound of her voice harmonizing perfectly with Quinn's. The way their voices fit together so perfectly, like puzzle pieces.

She managed to draw her eyes up and around the room. Most of the glee members had somewhere between a squint and a smile on their face. Tina (though Rachel didn't know her name yet) looked a little sulky. Mr. Schue had his hand on his chin and was nodding in approval.

It was now time for Quinn's solo. Quinn met Rachel's eyes and gave a small nod. Quinn stopped singing, and Rachel powered through. Rachel hit all of the notes of Quinn's intended solo, and gave it a lot more vibrato.

Rachel ended the song with a flourish. There was a moment of silence. Then the choir room erupted in clapping and cheers. Quinn was looking at Rachel, laughing and clapping too at her amazing job. She had done it. She had pulled through.

"Well," Mr. Schuester said happily when the noise had finally died down. He clapped Rachel on the back. "It seems we've found our ticket to sectionals!"

The crowd erupted again. Rachel looked up over the faces, her eyes glowing and her smile holding a radiance completely new to her.


	8. Chapter 8: Brought Down

**Chapter Eight**

As sectionals rapidly approached, Mr. Schuester was stressed about preparing the glee club, and yet he was also glowing with excitement and memories of his past glee performances as a high schooler. He was happy with the New Directions capabilities. The new members, Quinn and Rachel, were great additions whose voices blended smoothly into the group.

Two more Cheerios had even decided to join: Brittney and Santana. Ironically, Mr. Schuester's fear of Coach Sue somehow using her Cheerios to bring down the glee club had assuaged just as Sue had gotten the idea. Sue asked Brittney and Santana to join for this specific purpose.

"Find the weakest link, bring her down, and then quit the glee club after she does so they don't have enough people to compete at sectionals," Sue had told them, she really wanted the money back that the glee club was taking so that she could start dry cleaning the Cheerios uniforms in Europe again. If the glee club continued, Principal Figgins would only give the club more of her precious budget money and she might have to cut back on other valuable necessities, like tanning beds.

Their audition had also been a duet, and it was quite memorable too. Neither of them hit as many notes as Rachel, but that was to be expected. They also didn't hold hands like Quinn and Rachel had, and looked a lot more confident as well, wearing their show-face smiles.

No one in glee club could hit quite as many notes as Rachel, not even Tina. Tina did have more confidence than Rachel though.

Mr. Schue was worried about Rachel. Her voice was amazing, but there was always so much sadness in her eyes. She barely talked to anyone besides Quinn, and he thought that she might be the only outsider in New Directions.

Rachel didn't know why exactly, but she always felt a little nervous in glee club. Stiff and on edge, she felt as if everyone was watching her out of the corners of their eyes. And everyone was.

Rachel was glad when she could distract herself by glancing at Quinn, and sharing a lightly concealed smile.

Quinn didn't want to be too obvious about it. It bothered her that Rachel always sat next to her in glee club for this very reason, but she didn't have a nice way to tell Rachel this without hurting her feelings, and things were just getting better with them, so she left it alone. All the while sharing the spotlight with Rachel of sideways glances thrown at them from around the room all through practice.

Quinn desperately needed a beard. For her and for Rachel, that way Rachel couldn't take offense. But she knew getting one for Rachel would be a lot harder than getting one for herself.

Quinn already knew who she wanted, she had thought of it during glee rehearsal when she had finally noticed that Finn Hudson, who was the quarterback of the football team, was also in glee club, and something like its lead male singer. He would be a pretty impressive boyfriend to be seen with around the halls.

There were however, some complications. When Tina had announced that she had found the perfect song for her to sing as a solo so they would win at sectionals, everyone had worn annoyed yet impressed expressions as she belted it out. There was something more to Finn's expression though. His eyes were narrowed challengingly as he watched her, but there was an appreciative glow to them, and Quinn was sure she caught a hint of lust. One side of his mouth was curled in a half grin. Quinn had observed Tina and Finn chatting (since the two were the male and female leads they often had solos together) and from the way Tina laughed and smiled a bit too much, Quinn was fairly certain that the attraction was mutual. But Finn still hadn't asked Tina out.

Quinn wished that Finn would get a move on and ask Tina out, because the sooner he asked Tina out, the sooner he would find out how insecure and boring she was, and the sooner they would break up, and her perfect beard would be available. No strings attached. As of now, she would have to keep up the facade of only hanging out with Rachel out of sympathy. It worked quite well, considering that Rachel was just as valuable to the glee club as she was to the Cheerios, if not more, and, she went around looking just as forlorn. Even though she didn't have an angry coach breathing down her neck and screaming insults at her.

"What's up with Rachel?" Finn had been the first of many to catch up with Quinn in the hallway and ask. "I mean, she's a really good singer and all, but how come she's so quiet, and looks...sad all of the time, and why did you have to sing with her and hold her hand and stuff..."

Quinn smiled placidly. Finn's last words 'hold her hand and stuff' had caused menacing energy to rise up in her chest, and she did her best to mentally direct this at Rachel as she spoke slowly and cruelly. "Rachel is a very special girl, and requires extra help to achieve things that come naturally to others, but you have to agree, her talent is invaluable." Quinn said the words with relish, and had to suppress a laugh at her cleverness. But after the conversation was over, as Finn was walking away, she felt like crying.

Her guilt only increased when Rachel passed her in the hallway, beamed at her with enough brightness to blind a deer and said "hey Quinn."

Her girlfriend didn't even seem to mind that she was her only friend anymore. It was like nothing in the social world mattered to Rachel except Quinn. Quinn found it simultaneously flattering and unnerving.

Ever since the successful audition, after glee practice Rachel and Quinn would frequently find an empty bathroom, and lock the largest stall door so they could kiss each other without their legs bumping into the toilet.

Rachel held back a lot though. It was like she was afraid to get close to anyone, even Quinn. So when Rachel finally kissed Quinn with tongue, Quinn knew she had to be more honest with Rachel. "Rachel, there's something I need to tell you," Quinn said after Rachel pulled away.

"What?"

Rachel's eyes were still glowing that incredibly bright glow of happiness, making Quinn bite her lip.

"You know that slushie you got thrown on you?"

"Yeah?" Rachel was too busy being happy to predict what was coming.

"Well...I told them to throw it at you."

Rachel was suddenly looking down, so Quinn spoke faster, "I didn't have any other excuse to talk to you, and I was really curious Rachel, and I missed you, and I'm sorry."

Rachel was still looking down, but Quinn could see that all of the happiness had gone from her face. When she finally met Quinn's eyes, her expression was serious. "All I want, is for you to be honest with me."

Rachel brushed past Quinn and exited the bathroom stall, leaving Quinn standing there staring at the floor and swallowing the lump in her throat.

Rachel felt tears break free of her eyelids and stream down her face as she stormed out of Mckinley High, clutching her books to her chest and not even bothering to retrieve her backpack from her locker. Wave after wave of betrayal came crashing over her.

It had been Quinn who had told everyone that she was a loser, told everyone that she was goth. Unless of course she was lying about everyone thinking that too, maybe she had just made up that excuse to hide the fact that she had told the football players to slushie her for no reason, so that she could manipulate her into believing that everyone hated her, when in truth everyone probably hadn't even noticed her.

Rachel shoved her hand into her pocket, searching for her ipod. It wasn't there. She had left it in her locker.

At home, she had to bury her head in her hands and cry without the distraction of music. It also gave her time to think.

Quinn had manipulated her, lied to her. But no matter how cruel that seemed, she had done it all with the goal of getting Rachel on the team -with her. Everything Quinn had done, she had done to be with Rachel. And there was something very comforting about the grand gesture. Quinn may have been the only one at Mckinley to be so horrible to her, but she had also been the only one to take so much interest in her. Quinn was all she had, and she wasn't about to let go of her now, not when she had just revealed the truth to her, finally been honest. It was a big stepping stone in their relationship. Rachel rolled over with a slightly satisfied grin on her face and managed to get an hour of sleep before school the next day.

Rachel got to school early, where she found Quinn at her locker. Rachel could practically see the waves of sadness coming off of Quinn as she stuffed books into her locker. Rachel felt touched by this, and her whole body softened even more. "Quinn," she called out gently.

Quinn looked up and froze.

Rachel moved toward her. "I forgive you," she said reaching out and taking Quinn's wrists.

Quinn shoved the notebook she was still holding back into her locker and hugged Rachel.

"Just...keep being honest with me okay?" Rachel said as she held Quinn.

"Yeah," Quinn said through the lump in her throat. She resisted the urge to squeeze Rachel tighter, not wanting to alert her to the fact that something was still wrong. That Quinn was still hiding things from her.

As Rachel released Quinn, gave her a smile and walked away, Quinn hoped with all her heart that she was right about Finn, and that he wouldn't tell Rachel that she had practically told him that Rachel was retarded. Although it gave Quinn no pleasure in realizing it (okay maybe slight pleasure) Finn would never tell Rachel. He would probably never tell Rachel anything ever again. Who would ever talk to someone (at least in a normal way) after they had been told what Quinn had told Finn about Rachel. Finn must think Rachel was a head case. And even if he did, for some bizarre reason, tell Rachel, Quinn could always deny that she had said anything, and just tell Rachel that Finn was making it up too hurt her. Quinn was not going to lose Rachel over this.

"Alright," Mr. Schuester said during Wednesday glee rehearsal. He finally had an idea about how to help Rachel. "I know that glee club has been running for quite some time now, and this is high school, not middle school, but I really want to get to know your parents."

The glee members exchanged incredulous expressions.

"I think it'll be a great way to build community, and for me to get to know you a little better too. So, I made these permission slips that you need to get signed in order to compete at sectionals, and on the bottom of them is an invitation to parents night."

Mr. Shuester handed the stack of papers to Artie who was looking at Mr. Schue like he was insane. But he took a paper and passed on the stack.

"Mr. Schue, is this really necessary?" Tina asked.

"Yes," Mr. Schue said. "And either way you need to get the form signed for sectionals. I want the forms signed and handed into me by next Wednesday, or you can't compete at sectionals. No exceptions."

"I'm totally forging this," Puck mumbled, and Rachel heard.

Rachel looked down at her permission slip, and wished that she could forge her parental gaurdian's signature as well. The problem with living in Foster Care though, at least for her, was that she never stayed in a home long enough to learn her gaurdian's signature. LeRoy would probably actually be happy at the chance to get to know her better, but Rachel really didn't want to show him the form. She wanted to keep her life in glee -which she was really starting to enjoy- separate from her life at home with LeRoy.

She had no choice though. If she didn't show LeRoy the form she couldn't compete at sectionals.

She waited until the last possible moment to give it to him: Tuesday night (he probably wouldn't be awake yet when she left for school Wednesday morning). She hoped that he would already have plans and not be able to make it to parents night. It wasn't that LeRoy constantly had a full schedule, most of his time was spent on the couch or at work, but he did occasionally go out with his drinking bodies on Friday night. And Mr. Schue had scheduled parents night on a Friday as well.

"Can you sign this?" She asked softly, handing him the paper.

"Sure," LeRoy replied, barely looking at her. He almost didn't read the paper, but halfway through his signature he decided he needed to make sure he wasn't signing something crazy. Skimming the paper, his eyes stopped when he read the beginning of the invitation to parent's night. His heart skipped a beat. He had been planning on going to the bar, he had found a guy that he didn't mind flirting with, and who was actually a potential boyfriend. But he didn't want to look like a bad parent either. The invitation was just a reminder of how he had been falling down on the job. He didn't know that going would make him look like a much better parent, he barely knew anything about Rachel, but as he finished signing the form, he decided that he had to at least try.

When Rachel handed Mr. Schue the form, he held her gaze. "Are your mom and dad coming to parents night?"

Rachel couldn't help flinching at the word mom. "Its just my dad, and no, he's not coming."

Will frowned as he watched Rachel take her seat, but there was nothing he could do about it. How Rachel's parents acted wasn't her fault.

On Friday night, LeRoy's nerves were building as he prepared for parents night. He didn't know what to wear for one thing. If he wore a suit he might look to formal, and come off as snobbish, but he didn't want to look too casual either. He decided on his light brown leather jacket. Expensive, but not flashy enough to stand out. As he was opening the door, he was startled by Rachel's voice. She was in the kitchen and could see the door from there.

"Where are you going?" She asked, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible.

"Oh, um, just to parents night, remember? It was today."

Rachel's heart sank. "It's okay Mr. Berry, you really don't need to do that." Rachel tried to convince him.

"Rachel I'm happy to go, it'll be nice to get to know your teacher, I didn't even know you were in glee club until you showed me that permission form," LeRoy said. Her use of such a formal title only made him more certain that this was the right thing to do.

Rachel opened her mouth but couldn't think of anything else to say. LeRoy smiled, and Rachel watched as he opened the door then let it swing shut. Rachel slowly set down the dish towel that she had been holding while she pretended to do dishes.

Will Schuester was surprised to see Rachel's dad. As they shook hands, Will found himself looking the man up and down, searching for flaws, for some clue about why Rachel was the way she was. There was a tiredness to the slump of his shoulders and wrinkles around his eyes and forehead. His face also had a reddish tinge to it, hinting at the fact that he was an alcoholic. LeRoy looked pretty average.

After they were seated, Will glanced at his office door to make sure it was closed. Behind it, a line of parents stood chatting, enjoying the refreshments he had set out on the table in the hall, or just looking around impatiently as they waited for their turn to talk to him.

Will made eye contact with LeRoy. LeRoy was smiling a little nervously, he took his hands off Will's desk and placed them in his lap.

"I'm concerned about your daughter," Will said.

LeRoy's smile began to fade.

"She just doesn't seem...well, happy. She doesn't have a lot of friends, and although she's a great singer, no, an incredible singer, shes a natural, very talented...I just get the feeling that something's been stressing her out." He paused for a moment, checking LeRoy's face for anger, or anything else that might suggest that he had been abusing Rachel in some way. LeRoy's expression was unreadable, so Will continued. "Have there been any events recently that could have caused her trauma? You know, like the loss of a family member or loved one, maybe even the death of a pet, or a divorce?"

"I don't know any of the recent events that took place in her life. Rachel's been in Foster Care for nine years, since she was five-years-old. I just adopted her a few months before she started high school. I adopted her for, f-for my husband," LeRoy choked the last words out, surprised to feel tears coming to his eyes, even now, in such a public setting. Hearing what Will had to say about Rachel though, that she really was hurting, that he really was failing as a parent brought so many emotions to the surface, including those about Hiram. "I'm sorry," LeRoy said as more tears slipped from his eyes. "My, my husband was killed in a car crash, I adopted Rachel for him, it was his dream to be a father...But I? I really don't know how to be a parent." He found himself crying a little harder at those last words.

Will was shocked. He reached out and patted LeRoy's arm. "Its okay," he said. "There are resources at the school that can help you. Emma, I mean Ms. Pillsbury, shes great, she's the school counselor. I'm gonna suggest that Rachel starts seeing her so that she can work out any problems she might have had in Foster Care. Here, let me give you her information."

Rachel fiddled with the paper that excused her from class as she walked towards Ms. Pillsbury's office. She looked around the hallway self-consciously. There was no one around except a guy using the water fountain, and when he was done drinking he looked up and met her eyes before walking away with his back to her.

Rachel looked down at the floor, mentally going over what she was going to tell the counselor. Being told by LeRoy that Mr. Schuester had suggested counseling had been a blow to her already low self-esteem. She had hoped her discomfort in glee club hadn't been so obvious. Now she needed to find a polite way to convince Ms. Pillsbury that she didn't need help.

Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the glass door.

"Hello Rachel, please come in," Ms. Pillsbury had a sweet, gentle voice that Rachel couldn't help thinking would definitely be a soprano.

"Now, I understand that you used to be in Foster Care?" Ms. Pillsbury asked when Rachel was seated.

"Yes, but the thing is Ms. Pillsbury, I really don't need to talk about it. I just came here to make my parental guar - I mean, my dad, feel better about things."

"Counseling isn't for everyone Rachel, and I don't want to force you into something that you don't feel comfortable with, but don't you think that maybe you might feel better about it if you talked?"

Rachel didn't answer. She stared at the wooden desk.

"Do you have any friends you can talk about this kind of stuff with?"

"Yes," Rachel said. "I-I have Quinn. She helps me with everything. I don't need anything else."

"You know relationships, especially in high school, can have a lot of strain put on them if you only rely on one person. Now, I'm glad that you have someone you trust enough to share your feelings with, but if you ever need a second opinion, or someone else to talk to you can always sign-up again to come see me."

Rachel was relieved that their conversation seemed to be over. "Oh, okay, thank you Ms. Pillsbury."

Ms. Pillsbury smiled.

As Rachel turned to leave, the bell rang. In the time it took for her to walk across the office, the hallway was steadily flooded with people.

By a stroke of luck (for them at least) Brittney and Santana were walking by as Rachel left Ms. Pillsbury's office.

"I didn't know Rachel needed counseling," Brittney said to Santana.

"I didn't either," Santana replied. "But I think you've just found our way to carry out Coach Sylvester's stupid 'evil plan' so that she'll give us back our tanning bed privileges."

Santana and Brittney approached Rachel on either side.

"Hey Rachel," Santana said with mock sweetness. "What were you doing in Ms. Pillsbury's office?"

"Was it because you don't have any friends?" Brittney asked in her innocent deadpan.

"What -no," Rachel said defensively.

"Was it because you always look sad in glee club?" Brittney said.

"No, no! It was about my schedule," Rachel lied quickly.

"Which class?" Brittney asked.

"Math, I'm in the wrong level -and I really need to be going or I'll be late to class." Rachel pushed her way through the crowd hurriedly, effectively ditching them.

Santana watched her go with a smile, then turned the smile to Brittney. "Good job, Britt-Britt, there's no way she'll want to be seen in the counselor's office again. She was totally lying about the schedule thing. And with no one to talk to about all of her emotional problems, she'll be out of glee in a week."

"I don't know Santana," Brittney said. "This doesn't feel right, it feels pretty mean."

"Its not mean," Santana said. "We're just protecting ourselves from Coach Sylvester's psycho wrath. And our skin. A girl can't cheer properly without her tanning beds."

Rachel was a little irked by Santana and Brittney's comments, but it didn't matter, she wasn't going to talk to Ms. Pillsbury again anyway. She had been able to handle her problems for nine years without any help, there was no reason to talk now. It didn't change the past, and she didn't want to spend anymore time dwelling on what had happened to her. She wanted to spend all of her time living for the present, and her future, with Quinn.


	9. Chapter 9: The Corcoran Effect

**Chapter Nine**

Shelby Corcoran sat at her desk pretending to fill out paperwork. Students were still filing into the choir room, and she wanted to wait until the last possible moment to meet their eyes. It wasn't that she was displeased with them. It was quite the opposite. She was proud of them. Very proud of them. The advanced and entry choirs had just successfully completed their second concert of the year. Although advanced choir had been much closer to perfection than entry choir, entry had managed to improve immensely since their last concert, and if they kept it up, nearly all of its members were sure to make it into Vocal Adrenaline. All of Vocal Adrenaline's members also took advanced choir, and most had taken entry choir their freshman or sophomore year.

Shelby needed to be careful how she expressed her pride to the class. She would have to hold back just the right amount of it. She didn't want them to think that they were too good, otherwise they might get overconfident. But she still had to give them some confidence. A perfect balance between insecurity so they would work harder, and assurance of their abilities so that they wouldn't give up. She was still figuring out what expression to arrange her face into when something at the edge of her desk caught her eye.

"Who left this here?" She blurted out, pointing to the offending object.

She looked around the room, then up at the clock: one minute to the bell.

She glanced down at her desk, waited for the bell to ring, picked up the dandelion and stood, stepping around her desk and drawing herself up to her full height.

There was a tense energy in the room as she paced back and forth slowly. None of the students moved. There eyes were wide when they met hers, as if they were straining to make eye contact; too afraid to blink.

Shelby stood still in the center of the room and raised the flower. "I do not appreciate random things being left on my desk." She was a neat freak, everyone knew that.

She stared around the room. The tension seemed to be getting to be too much for the offender, for a shaky hand shot into the air.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry Ms. Corcoran," the girl said in a high voice. "My little sister must have left that. Yesterday during the rehearsal before the concert, I was supposed to be watching her and stuff...sorry."

Shelby blinked a few times indignantly. "First of all, anyone who is not enrolled in a choir class or in glee club is not allowed to be in the choir room, and secondly, under no circumstances are small children, siblings or otherwise, are allowed at rehearsals!"

Shelby turned to throw the flower in the trash. As she bent down she gave herself an internal shake. She was overreacting. And worse, she was allowing her personal problems to interfere with her job. She was a strict teacher, but random outbursts of anger were not part of her teaching strategies. She needed to cool off.

She turned back to the classroom. "Okay guys, I forgot to make copies of the Music History worksheets you will be doing today, to rest those vocal chords after that great concert yesterday!" This was hardly the way she had wanted to mention their success. The classroom was careful not to groan or verbally protest, but she could tell from their expressions that they were less than happy about the worksheets. It was a lie, too. She hadn't forgotten anything. She had planned to have them sing a nice, easy song for fun today. Worksheets were not part of it.

"Alright. Jesse! Your in charge, run them through warm-ups will you? And if you finish that there's music on my desk that you can pass out." She patted the stack of papers.

Jesse nodded dutifully.

Shelby knew that he was a charmer, and as fake as he was a good actor. But he was also her best singer for Vocal Adrenaline and advanced choir. He was popular enough to keep the classroom in control, either people were scared of him, liked him, or pretended too. He was her most useful student.

Shelby grabbed the Music History textbook from its designated shelf, and slid her keys off of her desk as well, hoping no one noticed.

When she was outside, instead of heading for the office, she veered to the right towards the parking lot.

Shelby unlocked her car, and sat in the driver's seat with a heavy sigh. She gripped the steering wheel of the unmoving car until her knuckles whitened.

Looking down, she allowed a few of the tears to slip from her eyes. She had thought she had the triggers under control. She worked with children every day, and although none of them were remotely similar to five-year-old Rachel, they were about the same age that her daughter would be now. Every now and then, they would do something, and it would ring a distant bell of sadness in her head as she wondered about Rachel. But usually she didn't get angry. Usually the emotions she felt weren't so vivid, usually they felt very, very, far away.

But seeing that dandelion. She hated garbage on her desk, or really littered anywhere in the choir room. She would have been annoyed anyway. And she didn't want little kids in the choir room because there were so many breakable things in it: trophies, the piano, cabinets of filed music to be scattered, coffee to be spilled...

But seeing that dandelion had felt different. It had felt like Rachel had been there. It had felt like making tiaras and blowing wishes could have been yesterday, just a day away. It brought memories that she wanted to experience but at the same time didn't because they carried so much pain. For just a second, it had felt like there was hope.

Shelby glanced down at her cup holder. Perhaps there was some coffee leftover from this morning. She lifted her coffee mug, tipped it up and drained the last drops of cold coffee. Then she got out of her car and went around the back. She opened the trunk where she kept full cases of red bull and rock star energy drinks for Vocal Adrenaline practice.

She pulled out a rock star energy drink, the kind with 240 milligrams of caffeine and a warning label to not drink while pregnant. Crying exhausted her. The outside of the can was still a little cold but the liquid was not. She needed to remember to buy some new coolers. She had lost her old ones in a prank played by a losing glee club, The Warblers, after sectionals when they had decided to steal all of Vocal Adrenaline's energy drinks. She was tired of hearing complaints about warm energy drinks.

Closing the trunk of her car, Shelby headed back towards the building. She stopped at the restroom to fix her make-up before heading to the copy machine in the office.

Shelby felt fairly confident about Vocal Adrenaline. They had just won Sectionals for their third year in a row, and had just as strong singers as the past years if not stronger. But she wanted something to remind her of why her glee club deserved to be champions, and what set them apart from everybody else.

There were still Sectionals coming up for other school districts in Ohio. As Shelby watched the worksheet copies slide out of the machine, she decided that she was going to attend one, to see just how good the other winning glee club was.

Shelby arrived at Sectionals early so she could get a good seat. Just as she was getting comfortable, she saw a tall man striding down the aisle towards her.

"Hello, Ms. Corcoran," Jesse St. James said.

"Jesse what are you doing here?" Shelby asked in exasperation. She didn't appreciate the feeling of being followed.

"The same thing you are," Jesse said, plopping down in the chair next to her confidently. "Checking out the competition."

Shelby rolled her eyes. "Great minds think alike."

Jesse smirked.

As the glee clubs performed, Shelby mentally corrected their singing. As she began to fall into the thought patterns of coaching she found herself zoning out. When a group called the New Directions hit the stage, her complete focus was regained. There was just this intensity about them, their singing wasn't perfect, but they put so much emotion into their words. As Shelby (a little jealously) marveled at their performance a girl dancing in the background caught her attention. Almost as soon as Shelby saw her, the girl stepped forward and belted out a short solo.

Shelby sat back in her chair, frozen in shock. 'It can't be,' she thought. Her eyes followed the girl more closely, but she was hard to see, she kept moving around the stage and behind other people as she danced. But her voice. It had just sounded so familiar. And even from her seat at the back of the theater, the girl's resemblance to her looked striking.

Jesse was also watching a girl with awe, just a different one who had a lot more solos. "Who is she?" He said as he watched Tina sing.

"I don't know," Shelby said absently, thinking of Rachel.

After the show was over, and the New Directions were announced as the winner, Shelby got up hurriedly from her seat, walking quickly.

"Bye Ms. Corcoran," Jesse said as she brushed past him before he had even stood up.

But she didn't answer, her thoughts were still racing. Half-way across the lobby, Shelby stopped in her tracks. She went to the bathroom, closed a stall door and put her head in her hands. She couldn't just bust into New Direction's dressing room. But she wanted to. The urge to see her daughter was overwhelming. Even if it wasn't her daughter who had been on stage, she had too know. Gathering her strength, and without a thought in her head of what she was going to say, she made her way to the areas backstage.

It took her awhile to find New Direction's room. By the time she opened the door, it was empty except for one person. She was blonde and bent over a jacket, fiddling with a button on it with her back to the door. Shelby recognized her from the stage. Her and the girl she hoped was her daughter had made eye contact quite a few times as they performed, and Shelby had noticed that there had been something more than friendliness to the way that they looked at each other.

"Hello," Shelby said and the girl turned. "My names Ms. Corcoran, I'm the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, I'm looking for a girl named Rachel." Shelby hoped that Rachel hadn't changed her name.

The girl stared at her with her mouth hanging open. "Shelby?" She said softly. She hadn't recognized her at first. In her fancier clothes and make-up that hid stress lines, her resemblance to the Shelby that she had known nine years ago was not strong. "I'm Quinn," the girl said holding out her hand. "Your Rachel's mother."

Shelby shook her hand with a slight smile. "Yes, uh, I am." She said a little awkwardly, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"What are you doing here," Quinn said. Anger was flaming in her eyes.

"I came to talk to Rachel."

"Fine then. I'll go get her." Quinn whirled around.

"No, wait!" Shelby said, suddenly afraid to talk to Rachel.

Quinn turned to face her with an eyebrow raised.

"Not, not yet," Shelby said. There wasn't enough time right now to talk properly, all of the kids would be getting on the bus soon. "I need you to talk to her first. Tell her to meet me at Carmal High's auditorium on Monday."

"And why in hell would I do that?"

"Because you care about her. I saw the way you were looking at her on stage. Believe me, I know a lover's eyes when I see them."

Quinn interpreted the words as a threat rather than a compliment. "Why not just talk to her now."

"Because if I do, she might never talk to me again. I need you to talk to her first, to convince her that she needs her mother."

"Well,_ I'm _not so convinced."

Shelby raised an eyebrow. "If she doesn't know the truth about why I left her she'll spend the rest of her life wondering."

"Tell me then."

"No, I'll tell her." Shelby didn't want Rachel to take the information and run. She wanted to form a relationship with her.

Quinn looked Shelby up and down. She still wasn't completely convinced that this would be good for Rachel, but she knew that she didn't trust Shelby, and the last thing she needed was to be outed by this bitch. "Fine. I'll do it, but I can't promise Monday."

"That's okay, here." Shelby quickly wrote down her email address on a sticky note from her purse. "Email me."

Quinn took the paper and looked down at it in disdain.

Shelby left the dressing room quickly before Rachel could see her. Only when she was in her car did she realize that she should have gotten Quinn's email. There was always the possibility that Quinn would throw her's away.


	10. Chapter 10: Sneak

**Chapter Ten**

Quinn found Rachel at the back of the bus, deep in conversation with Tina. They both sounded happy (amazingly) and Quinn didn't want to interrupt them, especially when the news she brought was less than cheerful, so she sat down quietly near Rachel.

"Hey Quinn," Rachel turned to her when there was a break in the conversation, still sounding cheerful.

Quinn took one of Rachel's hands and rubbed her thumb along the back of it. "Hey," she said softly.

Rachel knew something was up now, what with Quinn looking so somber and giving such a public display of affection. But she also knew Quinn well enough to know that she wouldn't want to talk about it now, she would want to wait until they were alone, so she turned back to Tina to continue their conversation, all the while questions buzzing in the back of her head about what Quinn would say later as she talked.

Quinn watched as Rachel chatted with Tina, then high-five'd Santana after she was given a compliment about her mini-solo. It seemed for the first time in glee, or maybe even ever, Rachel was being accepted by the group of people around her.

Quinn couldn't really share in the club member's festiveness. She was too busy thinking about Shelby. It didn't make sense that Shelby had come looking for her daughter now, of all times. What could she possibly want from Rachel? Was it money? Quinn knew for a fact that LeRoy was fairly wealthy, but Shelby didn't look like she was struggling either. She had been wearing designer clothes and her hand bag had been in the hundreds of dollars. So she really wasn't short on money, unless she was one of those fake rich people. Quinn just found it so odd that right when Rachel had been adopted Shelby had just happened to show up.

The bus had stopped so Quinn waited for her turn to enter the flow of people leaving. Outside, she found herself by Rachel's side, in a group of people laughing. "Mercedes is throwing a party," Rachel said excitedly.

Quinn tried to smile, Rachel had probably never been to a party before. Soon she found herself packed in an overcrowded car. Then she was being pulled into a room full of music and dancing by Rachel's hand. Santana handed Rachel a beer, then gave her another to pass to Quinn.

"I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you before," Santana said to Rachel. "I didn't realize how cool you were. It was mostly Coach Sylvester's fault anyway, she was pissed that her budget got cut and wanted to end glee club. But she won't, now that me and Britt-Britt have realized how kick-ass the club really is, I mean come on, we won Sectionals!"

"Yeah!" Rachel agreed happily yet a little breathlessly. By this time Rachel, Santana, Brittney, and Quinn were all on the floor dancing and drinking between beats.

Quinn felt a little dizzy and took another swig of her beer. The colors of the room were blurring together around her.

After they had been dancing for a while, and Quinn had lost count of how many beers she had downed, Quinn pushed Rachel against a wall. "Come on let's get outta here," she said drunkenly. She knew that they needed to leave so she could talk to her, but she couldn't remember why.

"Whoa there," Santana came over to them and pulled Quinn off of Rachel. "No drunk driving. If you need a ride outta here Artie's got it covered, his parents are really cool and will drive you guys home, no questions asked."

"Great," Quinn said stumbling, "Yeah, do that."

Rachel, who was less drunk than Quinn, supported Quinn on her shoulder.

When they got to Quinn's house, Quinn fumbled around with the key as if she couldn't remember how to use it. Rachel took it from her quickly and unlocked the door. Inside the house was quiet, as if Quinn's parents were already asleep or just not home yet. Rachel held a hand over Quinn's mouth so that she wouldn't accidentally make any noise.

"Which room is yours," Rachel whispered, she had only ever been in Quinn's basement. She risked moving her hand slightly so that Quinn could answer.

"That one," Quinn said thickly and a little too loudly, pointing up the stairs.

Rachel heaved Quinn up the stairs, feeling the pain in her back muscles, but more worried about the noise they were making. Inside Quinn's room she closed the door quickly and let go of Quinn who slumped over on the bed, unconscious.

Rachel looked around. She probably would've called LeRoy with Quinn's cellphone, but she didn't know his number. She would have to hope that he was either too drunk to notice she was gone, or too cool to care. He knew they had Sectionals, so maybe he was one of those guys who remembered what it was like too be in high school, and suspected that after such a big event there would be a party.

This wasn't Rachel's first party either. Her and her fellow foster brothers and sisters had definitely known how to drink and smoke problems away. All the drinking and dancing had made Rachel crave a cigarette, and she would have pulled one out of her emergency stash right now, but she didn't want to make Quinn's room smell like smoke.

Rachel wasn't going to sleep on Quinn's bed, and she couldn't pull a blanket out from under her even if she didn't mind disturbing her, though she was probably too knocked out to be woken even if Rachel could have yanked a blanket. Rachel dared to venture outside Quinn's room. The closest closet she found carried towels, so she pulled out a stack of them and brought them back to Quinn's room. There, she spread them out as a make-shift bed on the floor. As Rachel tossed and turned on the towels, she wished she had a dozen or so more beers to knock her out completely.

In the morning Quinn had a hangover, and Rachel woke with a pile of vomit dangerously close to her head. Rachel offered to go downstairs and make coffee, but Quinn told her not too because her parents would probably be up.

"I'll have to sneak you out the window," Quinn groaned, clutching her forehead. After that she could just stay in bed and pretend to have the flu or something if her parents came into her room. Thankfully for her it was a Saturday, so she didn't have to worry about missing school.

Rachel was fully prepared to jump down and out the window, having plenty of experience using this technique to escape drunk or otherwise enraged Foster parents. Though it didn't really help when they caught up with her. It was a more useful trick, Rachel had learned, for sneaking out in the middle of the night.

"Wait, Rachel, before you go, there's something I need to tell you," Quinn said, her voice still groggy and head pounding.

Rachel stopped with one leg out the window, straddling the windowsill.

"I saw um, your mom, Shelby, last night..." It was hard for Quinn to get the words out with the pain in her forehead.

Rachel stared at her. "Quinn, the alcohol is still effecting your brain. Get some sleep, okay?"

"No, wait." Quinn moaned softly.

Rachel swung her other leg over, hung from her hands, then dropped.

It was making her way through the backyard that felt dangerous.

She didn't want to sprint because the movement would draw the attention of Quinn's parents, who Rachel could see through the glass windows were enjoying their breakfast. If for whatever reason they had decided to glance out the window when she had fell, they would have seen her. Rachel quickly hid behind some bushes. Quinn's backyard was huge, it even had a swimming pool.

Working as fast as she could, Rachel moved from bush to bush until she reached the fence. The fence was high, and made of thin metal strips with big gaps between them. Climbing it would be hard, and she could be seen from the window if she tried that. Luckily, there was enough space between the ground and the start of the fence for her to slide underneath it.

She walked as quickly as she could to LeRoy's house. She wanted to break into a run, but she wasn't wearing athletic clothes, so she didn't because she didn't want to draw attention to herself. She thought about sneaking in through the window, but even if she could somehow manage to climb LeRoy's slippery walls, which she probably could given enough time, she hadn't remembered to leave her window unlocked. So she rang the doorbell.

When LeRoy answered, he took in her appearance with a raised eyebrow. She had mud smeared on her face from sliding under the fence and her clothes were torn in some places. Her breath smelled like alcohol.

"I'm not going to be a hypocrite," he said. "Come on inside and get yourself cleaned up."

He allowed Rachel to step inside the house. He gave her a slight grin with annoyance shining in his eyes. And with that he turned his back on her and went back to the living room to watch TV.

Rachel felt relieved to have one of the cool parents, and she knew she should be relieved too. But as she cleaned herself up, a ripple of disappointment and loneliness stirred in her gut. She couldn't help fantasizing that Shelby would have been furious if she came home looking like that, and that she would have made her stop feeling like an abandoned foster kid. She knew that these thoughts just came from what Quinn said, and she didn't want to get annoyed at her girlfriend for saying strange things while drunk, but she wished that she hadn't said it.

On Monday, Quinn looked considerably healthier when she caught up with Rachel in the halls. "Rachel, I don't want to freak you out, but I really did see Shelby on Friday night."

"No way," Rachel said confidently. "Why wouldn't she have come to see me?"

"Because she was afraid you wouldn't want to talk to her."

Rachel bit her lip. Her mother knew her well, which annoyed her considering that her mother hadn't known her at all for nine years. "What was she doing at a glee competition, my mom lived off of paychecks from convenience store jobs."

"Well, not anymore. She's the coach of Vocal Adrenaline now, a really good glee club, our competitor. Look I know its a lot to take in, but she wants to meet up with you, and I really think you should do it. When I wasn't busy being hungover, I did a little research, you know the anxiety you've been feeling in glee?"

"Yeah?" Rachel hated to admit it, espically now that things seemed to be changing and people were accepting her more.

"Well, it could be due to unresolved trauma, like that shit with your mom. It starts out real slow, just feeling anxiety in one place for instance, like you did in glee club, but if you don't fix the problem, it can keep spreading to other areas of your life, until your locked up in your room with your computer watching reruns of Ugly Betty, and too afraid to leave the house, because you don't want to have a panic attack in a random public place."

Rachel raised her eyebrow and gave her the 'oh please' look. "What kind of messed up psychology websites have you been reading Quinn? Because a little healthy stage nerves in glee club, does not mean that I have some huge psychological disorder stemming from my estranged mother's abandonment."

"A little healthy stage nerves? If it was healthy than everyone wouldn't be-" Quinn stopped herself quickly before she revealed the old rumors, most of them started by her. "Look, I Googled it. And besides the incredibly accurate never lying internet sources, I also have been in counseling, Rachel. I was bullied when I was younger and-"

"You were bullied?" Rachel said disbelievingly.

"Yes, in elementary school. It wasn't easy being ditched by you, and so I got pretty ugly and everyone hated me. In sixth grade I started feeling anxious in math class for no reason, so I started seeing a counselor and she told me that the trauma from the bullying was still negatively effecting me. I worked through my problems with her and everything was fine."

"So then all I need to do is see a counselor."

"It wouldn't hurt but it would also be better to tackle the problem head on, you have the advantage of being able to see Shelby, so you should take it."

Rachel was silent for a moment. For nine years, whether in the back of her mind or the front of it, she had longed for Shelby. Now, however, things in her life were just starting to get better. She could see herself living out a bright happy future, with Quinn, with the glee club, and she didn't want getting rejected by Shelby to ruin that.

"Rachel, you don't have to form this big relationship with Shelby. If you want, you can just talk to her once, find out the reason she left you. She invited you to see her today, at Carmel High's auditorum."

"But what if I don't like the reason?"

"Then at least you don't have to spend the rest of your life wondering what it is. You might feel really broken, but you can work through that brokenness. I'll help you work through that brokenness. And then the rest of your life you're free."

"Even if I did consider it, today's just too soon Quinn. I-I want to see her before I meet up with her. From afar."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Alright. Well then I'll email her and tell her you're not coming today, and we can sneak into Vocal Adrenaline practice instead."

Rachel gave her a worried look and opened her mouth like she was about to protest.

"Don't worry Rachel. If we get caught, its not weird, their our top competitor, we'd be fools if we didn't spy on them. I'm fifteen minutes late to class, so I should probably be going, I like to make an entrance but not that much of one."

They hadn't paid much attention as the halls had emptied around them. Rachel and Quinn shared a smile for a goodbye. Rachel wasn't going to class. And not just because being not-so-popular made being late not-so-cool, but also because she needed some time alone to think. She was so nervous about going to see Shelby. Just the thought of watching her from a distance freaked her out. Maybe Quinn was right about the anxiety thing.

Shelby had emailed Quinn the directions to Carmel High School, so Quinn had one of her sophomore cheerleading friends drive them over. Quinn made up a lie about her new boyfriend going there, because glee club still wasn't really cool with most of the Cheerios, and her friend definitely wouldn't get the whole spying-on-your-rival thing, she would just think it was stalkerish and creepy. The boyfriend lie also solved the problem of her beard.

When Rachel and Quinn opened the auditorium door, a Vocal Adrenaline practice had already begun. They crawled across the floor on their hands and knees, hiding behind the chairs. Rachel kept glancing up, but all she could see was the back of a head with sleek dark hair. The sight still made her nervous. Quinn pulled on her hand signaling that if they got any closer they would be easily spotted, so they both stopped moving and peered out carefully around the chairs.

Vocal Adrenaline was in the middle of rehearsing a number. A killer one two. Rachel tried to distract herself from Shelby by focusing on their performance. The problem was Shelby kept shouting out instructions, and every word cut through Rachel like a knife.

"Good!"

"A little more to the left on that turn, Dylan."

"Make sure your breathing from your diaphragm, Becky, you look a little out of breath there."

"Jesse! Perfect! Everyone be like Jesse!"

Rachel didn't even notice that she was shaking, but Quinn did. She squeezed Rachel's hand. "Your mother kicks-ass." Quinn whispered in an attempt to loosen her up.

Rachel grinned. "Yeah, I don't think I would want to get on the wrong side of her."

"Not all strict teachers are strict parents." Quinn tried to reassure her.

"No, yeah, she wasn't really, at least not this bad, I guess she was more of a fun parent." Rachel said.

"Stop!" Shelby yelled. "You guys can stop, there's still a lot, of work to do on that number, but its good for now. Take five, and you know where the energy drinks are, I finally got some new coolers, so they should be cold..."

The crowd on the stage dispersed as the members disappeared back stage.

Rachel and Quinn jumped when the door behind them and to the left of them swung opened. Quinn involuntarily pulled Rachel farther down behind the seat.

They were surprised to see Mr. Schuester striding down the auditorium aisle. They watched as he introduced himself to Shelby. Shelby stood to shake his hand and Rachel took in a breath sharply as she was able to see her mother more clearly for the first time in nine years.

That she was dressed fancier was the obvious difference between the old Shelby and the new one, but Rachel noticed that everything about her appearance was more angular. From the sharp lines of her facial expression, to the commanding way she held herself. Rachel felt a shiver run through her. As a child the sight of her mother had never scared her before, not like this.

"I'm here about one of your students," Mr. Schuester said, "Jesse, I believe. He's been attempting to form a relationship with one of my students, Tina, and I don't know if that's the best thing with Regionals right around the corner, I don't want either one of them to get hurt."

Rachel didn't know why, but suddenly the idea of a member of Vocal Adrenaline dating Tina seemed completely hilarious to her, in a really childish way, like kids thinking kissing was gross. She started giggling, and quickly had to stuff her hand in her mouth. To her surprise, Quinn started giggling as well. Soon they were fighting not to make eye contact with each other, because the idea of them both stuffing their fists in their mouth and hiding behind chairs in an auditorium as they spied on adults was just so ridiculous and childish that they couldn't help releasing their pent up fears through the laughter. Quinn's fear of being outed. Rachel's fear of her mother.

The two adults were starting to notice the weird hissing noise emanating from the chairs and were looking around. Quinn quickly grabbed Rachel's arm and started dragging them to the far exit, where she hoped they wouldn't be recognized by the backs of their clothing and hair.

Outside they let their laughter out to its full volume. They sprinted until they were off campus. Then they started walking towards the coffee shop where Quinn's friend would pick them up.


	11. Chapter 11: Talk It Out

**Chapter**** Eleven**

Quinn looked over her shoulder and waited for her friend to finish driving away before turning back to Rachel.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Quinn asked.

"Yes, this is just something that I need to do by myself," Rachel said.

"Whatever happens," Quinn said taking Rachel's hand. "Whatever happens, just know that I'm here for you when you're done okay?"

Rachel nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"Good luck in there," Quinn pulled her into a hug, "And I love you."

"I love you too, Quinn." Rachel said. Of course Quinn would choose a time like this to say I love you for the first time, but Rachel wished that she had waited. She didn't want the memory of their first time declaring their love to each other to be intertwined with the memory of the meeting with Shelby that Rachel was about to have.

"Alright," Quinn said after they had pulled away. "Meet me in the coffee shop, hopefully I will have finished some of our math homework by then."

"'kay," Rachel smiled and waved at her girlfriend.

Her smile faded as she turned to face the building in front of her, Carmel High. She took a deep breath and walked at a slow even pace towards the back entrance of the auditorium.

When she entered, she heard the soft, disjointed plunking of piano keys. She didn't announce herself, she wanted a little more time to prepare herself. As she walked down the aisle leading to the stage, and the women sitting at the piano with her back to her, memories washed over her, and suddenly she felt as if she were in another place.

As if she were standing silently in front of a room full of children, a women she never learned the name of holding her hand. It was distantly noisy, and rows of beds were lined in front of her. The women let go of her hand, then gave her a small push. After that, Rachel didn't move anymore, instead she stood frozen, until the lights above her were turned off, and she was slapped for not being in bed and shoved into one of the remaining empty ones. When she woke she was wet, and the next thing she felt was stinging as she was slapped again for messing the bed.

Her first foster home had been packed with children. Before her first day of kindergarten, the girl Rachel had to share a bed with had messed the bed, covering Rachel in it too. When she had told her foster mother, she had been punished for waking her in the middle of the night. She had gone to her first day of kindergarten smelling like urine, and hadn't made any friends. But she had learned to keep her head down.

Now she would have to find some way to meet her mother's eyes. As she neared the piano, an overwhelming feeling of warmth washed over her. She was also filled with dread, as if she were walking to her execution. It was a strange combination.

"I never learned how to play piano," Shelby said. She played four keys together then stopped. "It was one of my biggest regrets."

Shelby looked up and met Rachel's eyes. Rachel felt paralyzed by the intense stare. Tears rose up in her eyelids.

"But it wasn't my biggest one." Shelby stood and approached Rachel.

Shelby paused for a moment, looking into Rachel's large, frightened eyes. Maternal warmth rushed through her, and then she couldn't resist the urge. She wrapped her arms around Rachel and hugged her.

Rachel tensed but otherwise didn't move. She stood there with her arms at her sides, holding her breath. Shelby's arms were strong and gentle. Wave after wave of warmth washed over Rachel. After a moment, Rachel felt her knotted insides loosen by a fraction.

"Let me guess," Rachel said, a little surprised when her voice came out normally. "Your biggest one was that Vocal Adrenaline lost all of its coolers after Sectionals."

Shelby pulled away. "You heard about that?" She said in amusement masking tears.

"One of my best friends is dating your lead singer. News travels fast." Rachel felt suddenly cold without Shelby's arms around her.

"Well, Jesse's not supposed to be dating Tina anymore. But I guess there's no point in even trying to break them up. Some people just can't stay apart."

"While others very easily can."

Shelby didn't miss the bitter note in Rachel's voice.

"Do you want to, go get some coffee or something? Then we can talk more properly."

"No." Rachel said firmly. "I don't think that would really be appropriate considering that you're a teacher, and I'm a minor."

"Alright, lets just sit down then," Shelby said.

Shelby held onto Rachel's arm lightly, as they moved towards the cushioned auditorium chairs, as if Rachel needed the guidance. Rachel didn't like the feeling of being controlled, and she felt uncomfortable with Shelby in her personal space. But she also felt relieved to be receiving her mother's touch. After nine years she had thought she never would again.

Shelby sat down expecting Rachel to take the chair beside her. At the last moment, Rachel moved to sit in a row in front of Shelby. She wanted a break from the closeness, and she also knew that she would never be able to ask the questions she needed to if she was meeting Shelby's eyes. If she cried, she wanted to be able to hide that too.

Rachel felt Shelby's eyes on the back of her neck.

"I never found out why you left." Rachel said, the smallest of flutters in her voice, so small that only a mother could pick it out. And Shelby noticed.

"Before I go into that, I want you to know that I always loved you."

Rachel rolled her eyes. The word 'love' seemed to mean very little coming from Shelby.

"It-it wasn't easy what I had to do." Shelby's voice caught in her throat.

Rachel snorted. "It had to be easier than spending nine years in foster care."

"Rachel, I hoped that you would have been adopted."

"Well maybe you should have made sure." Rachel turned her head angrily and met Shelby's eyes, then quickly looked away. "No one wants to adopt annoying little kids. Most people prefer babies." Rachel said more softly, looking down into her lap.

"Rachel, I hoped that you would have been young enough I-" Shelby looked down at the floor. "Rachel I didn't just give you up for no reason-"

"I know, it was money."

"No, it wasn't about money!" Shelby raised her voice a little, then said in a more normal tone: "Rachel, I had cancer."

"W-what?"

Shelby nodded, a few tears had slipped from her eyes. She sniffed and brushed them away. "After you left, or, went over to Quinn's house, Mrs. Fabray, her mom, came over to check on me," Shelby was speaking through a slow flow of tears now, but quickly wiping them away as she spoke. "She knew something was up, her mom, had recently died of cancer, and so she took me to the doctor, and when I got my diagnoses, I thought I was going to die Rachel. And Mrs. Fabray made me see, that it wouldn't be good for a child to be around that so-"

"So it was her fault!" Rachel said, anger and hope rising in her chest.

Shelby blinked empathetically as she watched the desperation cover Rachel 's facial features. Needing to be close to her, Shelby moved over the row of chairs and dropped into the chair beside Rachel. She put a hand on her shoulder.

Rachel stared down into her lap.

"Rachel look at me."

Rachel's eyes flicked up and a tear slid down her face. It stung her to meet Shelby's eyes.

"I was the one who chose to give you up." Shelby brushed away Rachel's tear. "No one could have _ever_ made that decision for me. I promise. I never would have given you away because of someone else's opinion of me."

Rachel took a moment to cry a little, but she brushed her own tears away quickly before Shelby could. Shelby rubbed her back, wishing Rachel would let her help her.

"You remember that day when I was sick and you were taking care of me? I couldn't stand to have you see me that way...it was just so wrong."

Rachel looked up again. "What about relatives? What about your parents, why couldn't they have taken me?"

Shelby leaned back in her chair. "I've been estranged from my parents since I was eighteen. I'm sorry you never got to meet them but...giving you to them would have been even worse than foster care. And you still would have had to watch me die." Shelby didn't know if her parents would have even taken Rachel, but she figured she didn't need to tell Rachel that detail.

"But you didn't die."

"I was a lab rat Rachel, they wanted to experiment for a new treatment, so I figured why not. It would probably make my death more painful but..."

"But you didn't die."

"Don't look so angry Rachel. It was a miracle. From what I did when I was a teenager? I thought it was just my past catching up to me. Finally hurting me right when everything was perfect, right when I had you. I thought there was no way I would make it. I did some pretty nasty stuff, never get started on smoking Rachel, its only a gateway drug but still."

Rachel snorted.

Shelby looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "You know it was Chris who got me into rehab."

"My father." Rachel said fondly, with a small smile.

"Chris wasn't your father," Shelby looked down and met her gaze. Rachel deserved to know the truth. From how upset she looked now, Shelby knew that she might never get to see her again. "I know you must have assumed that because he was the only guy I ever talked about but-"

"Who was my father?"

Shelby swallowed. "I don't know. I met him at a bar. We were drunk, it was...a one night stand. You know I never even got his name, and if I did I don't remember," Shelby shrugged. "Chris didn't leave me because he didn't want to support you. He left me because I cheated on him. The one thing he couldn't forgive me for, though he forgave me for so many other things. Too many times. But he would have been a good father to you."

"You know I never even cared who my father was. When I was younger, it was just all about you. And then when I was in foster care, sometimes when I was outside, I would look for you, as if you would be there. Like I was just expecting you to be on the street, or at the grocery store. Especially Seven-Elevens. I remember crying so hard one time when you weren't there."

"Rachel, I'm so sorry-"

"Why did you never come back? After you got better, couldn't you have come and found me?"

Shelby studied the ceiling again and shrugged. "I didn't know where to find you. When I gave you up, I didn't fill out any paperwork, told them that I had noticed you on the street a couple times, that you were homeless. They must have known I was lying, the resemblance was striking, even then. I just knew that if I didn't cut off all ties, if I didn't make it impossible for me to find you that I would come back. Upset your whole new life. I knew there was the possibility that you could tell them your name, but not much else, I didn't even know if you knew your last name."

Rachel had known her last name. But she hadn't told anyone anything. She hadn't spoken a word. It had been impossible for her to talk. The first time she had talked had been to tell her first foster mother that the girl had wet their bed. And that hadn't gone so well.

"Foster care sucked."

"Rachel you don't have to be in foster care anymore," Shelby said leaning forward. "You can come live with me, I have a nice place, its not much but its big enough for the two of us. I can adopt you, we can be a family again, I can be your mom."

"I'm already adopted."

"You, you are?" Shelby swallowed. "Um, that's um," she couldn't quite force herself to say 'good'. "Well how long has that been...?"

"His name is LeRoy," Rachel said avoiding the question intentionally. "My, my Dad." She said firmly but with great effort. She didn't consider LeRoy to be her parent, more of a... living supervisor. It was extremely hard saying this word in front of Shelby, because the pain in Shelby's eyes did bother Rachel. But she needed Shelby to believe that she considered LeRoy her father, and right now it seemed to be working, maybe only because Shelby was too hurt to see through it.

Rachel and Shelby sat without speaking. Rachel listened to Shelby's breathing. Shelby stared around at the ceiling, as if examining stars in the sky.

"Its getting pretty late," Shelby said starting to stand.

Rachel didn't feel like standing up, but she followed Shelby anyway. The faster Rachel got away from her the better.

In the aisle Shelby turned to Rachel and put her hands on her shoulders. "I know you probably never want to see me again...can I get one last hug?"

Rachel wrapped her arms around Shelby this time. As she was enveloped in that warmth again, her mother's embrace, she couldn't prevent herself from tightening her grip, from clinging on to her. She wanted to stay in her mother's arms forever. "I might see you again," Rachel said, caught up in the moment yet unsure that it was true. "Quinn has your email, so maybe we could go to dinner sometime?"

Shelby pulled away and nodded, brushing a stray tear off of her own cheek and forcing a smile.

"I love you," Shelby said as Rachel started walking away.

Rachel turned her head slightly. "Right." She said softly and gently.

Shelby didn't follow Rachel to the door, instead she turned toward the stage. Rachel felt a wave of annoyance. Did Shelby think fixing her piano skills would change the past?

Rachel tried to slam the auditorium door, but it was too heavy. She only succeeded in making her arm sore.

Outside, Rachel leaned against the auditorium wall. She didn't care that she was on a school campus, or that her mom was a door and a stage away, sobbing over piano keys. She pulled out one of her emergency cigarettes and took a long drag. Maybe she would even get caught.

It would be better than thinking about Shelby or explaining the talk to Quinn.

**Okay so this chapter took a lot longer to get posted than I wanted it too, but I've been suddenly pretty busy with driver's ed and other summer programs. I will try to get some more chapters up as soon as I can, but it might be a few weeks before they're up. I thought this chapter would be a good stopping point for a little while. ****Its been really fun writing this story so far and I'm glad that what entertains me to write also seems to entertain others to read. Thanks so much for the continued support of this story! :)**


	12. Chapter 12: Afraid

**Chapter Twelve**

Quinn clutched Rachel's hand from across the table, not caring that their joined hands were on display for everyone to see, laid together in the center of the table. When Rachel had entered the coffee shop her steps had been clumsy and there was a disconnected look in her eyes. When she had sat down across from Quinn, Quinn had immediately been able to smell the smoke on her. Rachel had allowed her hands to splay out ungracefully onto the table, and Quinn had gathered them up.

"What happened?" Quinn asked urgently, squeezing her hand and craning her neck forward and down slightly.

Rachel let out a subconsciously held breath. She was looking up at the ceiling, and even though her lids didn't hold liquid in them her expression suggested that she might cry. "She wants me back." Rachel looked down to meet Quinn's eyes.

Quinn's eyebrows knit together in a frown.

"Shelby invited me to come and live with her."

"So what did you tell her?"

"That I wouldn't."

One side of Quinn's lips twisted to the side in a sympathetic grimace. Then she looked down and there was silence as they both studied the table.

Rachel knew that Quinn must be confused with the lack of information given. "She had cancer," Rachel said in an attempt to help explain, "that's why she gave me up."

Quinn looked up in shock and confusion. "What?! I don't understand..."

Rachel hesitantly but thoroughly explained Shelby's story.

"And you still don't want to live with her?"

"I can't just forgive her for my horrible past right away."

Quinn bit her lip. "You still blame her..."

"No, its not that I blame her, exactly, its just what happened, happened because of her choices, you know I'm not saying everything was her fault, but I'm just not ready to forgive her."

Quinn nodded.

Quinn's phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled a hand away to retrieve it. When she looked down at the screen her eyebrows flashed upward briefly. "Martha says she's coming by to pick us up." Quinn texted back a reply quickly.

Rachel bit her lip, Martha the cheerleader had never been one of her favorite people in the world, but usually she didn't mind her that much. She was one of Quinn's slightly more bearable friends. Seeing her now though, would be particularly annoying. In the state she was in Martha would probably assume she had been dumped.

"Look, Rachel, I don't want to push you to spend time with Shelby, honestly she can be a bit selfish sometimes, which is obvious by the fact that she didn't tell you anything when she gave you up, she should have explained the truth to you then, but you can't just meet her once and then decide that's it. "

"Wasn't that the original plan?"

"Yes," Quinn smiled through her teeth. "But that was before we knew anything, now, you need to find out if the relationship she wants to have with you is genuine. I think it is, but it's always possible that there was some other motive."

"Quinn, I'm not interested in that, that's not why I'm holding back. I know Shelby, and the way she felt for me, I know that she wasn't faking it. I-I just, feel so uncomfortable around her, I can't imagine what it would be like to live with her, her constantly breathing down my neck, a-and judging my singing! What if she thinks I'm a bad singer? Or worse, what if she asks me to sing and my throat closes over like it did in my first glee rehearsal, I-I mean the audition."

Quinn watched her speak with a mixture of sympathy and longing, she wanted to be able to comfort her properly, to hug her, to hold her, to touch her, to make her feel completely in every part of her being the worth she held to Quinn. But since they were in the coffee shop she settled for resting her hand on Rachel's shoulder. "I know that the relationship that you have with your mother is really complicated, but maybe spending time with her will make the fear go away."

Quinn's hand slid off of her shoulder.

Rachel and Quinn left the coffee shop to meet Martha outside, who waved enthusiastically at them when she saw them.

Rachel decided she needed a second opinion. She longed to see Shelby again, but that didn't prevent the anxiety the thought caused her. Maybe it was just better to daydream about her. It was definitetly safer.

Ms. Pillsbury looked a little surprised to see Rachel in her office, Rachel hadn't bothered signing up for an appointment.

"Hi," Ms. Pillsbury said questioningly.

"Hi." Rachel let out a breath. "Um, is it okay if I sit down?"

"Go ahead, Rachel. What is it that you need?" Ms. Pillsbury slid on a small smile, and filled her expectant huge eyes with warmth.

Rachel tucked her plaid skirt underneath her as she sat, Quinn had told her to buy the more cheerful looking clothing item when they went to the mall over the weekend. "Um, yeah, I know me being here is a little weird," Rachel laughed nervously. "I-uh I just really need some advice about something."

Emma nodded. "Well, that's what I'm here for." She knit her fingers together and waited for a response.

"Its about my mom, my birthmother, actually."

Emma raised her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"She recently came back into my life, and she wants to be a part of it again, permanently, and I-I just don't know how I feel about that."

"Hm." Emma paused in thought. "Well," she said slowly. "Do you feel close to her?"

"Yeah, I mean I guess. Its so weird having her back. I mean I haven't seen her in so long..."

"So she almost doesn't feel like your mother anymore?"

Rachel was tempted to say yes. But what was the point of lying when she was trying to figure out how she felt? She sensed that Ms. Pillsbury was expecting her to be sensitive to this type of question. Still not ready to have the truth of her emotions manipulated out of her, Rachel remained silent.

Rachel shifted in her chair. In the soft, simultaneously soothing and uncomfortable silence Rachel spoke. "She asked me to live with her."

"Oh, wow. That seems like a pretty big thing for her to ask you on your first meeting."

"Well, she didn't know I was adopted, she thought I was still in foster care."

"So um, how did she react, when you told her you weren't anymore?"

"She was sad." Rachel said softly.

"And um, how did that make you feel Rachel?"

Rachel's heart pounded. "I..." Rachel looked into Ms. Pillsbury's large, contemplating eyes. "I didn't want to hurt her...I mean, I don't, but at the same time, I did. She um, she had a good reason for giving me up, but the hurt I saw in her eyes, it made me feel good..." Rachel said the last word weakly.

"Why do you think her hurt made you feel good?"

"Because I...because it was almost like she cared."

"But why didn't her asking you to live with her show that she cared?"

"It did...but I wanted to make sure that she meant it."

"Um..." Emma said softly, studying the table and giving Rachel a moment. Then she met Rachel's eyes. "What about LeRoy? Do you feel that he's been supportive of you throughout this difficult time in your life?"

Rachel nodded absently, wiping her nose and sniffing.

"And how did he react, when you told him?"

"I haven't told him."

"Rachel," Emma's already large eyes had widened. "That's a pretty big thing to keep from him."

Rachel sighed. "Its not like its a secret or anything, I just don't want to hurt him."

Emma nodded. "Rachel, its good that you don't want to hurt your father..." Emma paused when Rachel grimaced on her last word. "But I think its a little unhealthy for you to keep something that large from him."

Rachel shook her head. "I just don't see how it matters, I'm not interested in having a relationship with her."

"Are you sure? I've heard about plenty of adoptees who were reunited with there birthmothers and had quite satisfactory relationships with them. Of course there have also been some who it didn't work out for, everyone needs to work that out for themselves, but almost all of them at least gave it a try before quitting."

Rachel thought that Emma vaguely sounded like she was talking about smoking. "Yeah, but they didn't have Shelby Corcoran as a mother."

"Shelby Corcoran?" Emma said a little surprised. "The coach of Vocal Adrenaline?"

Of course Ms. Pillsbury had heard of her.

Rachel nodded, amusement mingling with sadness.

Emma studied Rachel's face and her expression changed. "Your not afraid to spend time with her because she's your rival glee club's teacher are you?"

"No." Rachel laughed softly. Then she sighed heavily. She had to get this off of her chest, it was the reason she had come here. She stared down at the wooden desk. Her eyes followed the pattern of golden lines running over brown, as she rapidly moved her fingers over each other. "Ms. Pillsbury?"

"Yes, Rachel?"

"When, when I said that I didn't understand my feelings, it was a bit more complicated than that, while its true that I don't understand all of them, I definitely know that one of the main things that I feel when I am around Shelby is anxiety, and what I don't understand about it is how to fix it."

"Well, there are a few different options for treating anxiety, it can be a very large barrier especially if it persist for a long period of time. Anxiety can be treated with therapy, or medications or a combination of both."

"No. I mean with all due respect, I'm just not interested in that kind of serious treatment right now. What I need is a quick fix. Something that will work right away."

"Curing anxiety is a long process, for some it can even be life long."

Emma surveyed Rachel's disapointed expression and sighed. "There is, one bit of advice I can give you though. Whatever it is your afraid of, if you really want a short-term cure, don't avoid it. This is, basic psychology, because whenever you avoid something or someone that you fear, it makes you feel relieved or even safe, and this only makes the fear stronger. So all I can tell you Rachel, is that if you don't want to be afraid of your mother anymore, your going to have to face her, and face the reasons you fear her, which will probably be easier for you to figure out after spending some time with her."

A smile had spread across Rachel's face. "Yeah,"she said nodding, "I think your right. Thank you."

Emma returned the smile. "I'm glad that I could be of some help."

Rachel started to stand.

"Oh, and don't forget to check back in and tell me how it went. By then I might even have a pamphlet for you." Ms Pillsbury beamed.

"Alright, I will. Thanks again, Ms. Pillsbury."

Rachel turned away from the office, her heart already beginning to feel less light as she walked down the empty hallway. She was going to face Shelby, but first there was something else she had to do. Right now, it was this thought that added weight to her gut.

**So, I finally managed to write this. It was a bit hard for me to get back into it though, its weird, after spending so much time away from a story it makes it harder to remember the sort of, flow to it, the style. I hope everyone liked this short but sweet chapter, and I will try to get one up on more interesting stuff *cough* Shelby, as soon as I can. :)**


	13. Chapter 13: Food for Thought

**Chapter Thirteen **

When Rachel got to the house it was quiet, meaning LeRoy probably wasn't here yet. She hurried to the kitchen and set some water on the stove to boil. Her hand shook as she stirred the noodles in the pot. Maybe it wasn't the best dinner to bribe someone with -being so plain and everything, but he hadn't done much better in his attempts to get her to like him, so she figured this probably met his standard.

She stirred a bit too vigorously and water splashed out onto her hand. Gasping and jumping back, Rachel quickly turned on the cold water and put her hand under the facet of the kitchen sink. Small tears of pain rolled out of her eyes.

Why was she even bothering to do this? There was no need to impress LeRoy, or make him think she was trying too hard for attention. What was the point of making him dinner when it would be so lame anyway. But, she remembered as her hand began to cool down, she wouldn't have enough time to talk with him otherwise.

The water in the pot began to boil over, withdrawing from the sink, Rachel held a wet towel to her injured hand and turned the stove down to medium.

She looked up at the sound of a lock turning. As the front door swung upon, she made an involuntary movement, reaching for the towel covering her left hand but then stopped. She couldn't hide her injury, her skin would sting too much without the towel.

LeRoy met her eyes as he came into the house. "Hi." He gave a friendly smile. His eyes flicked over the the steam rising from the pot on the stove. "You making dinner?"

Rachel nodded, a bit embarrassed. "I wanted us to eat together."

"Alright, let me go change out of my work clothes, then I'll be right down."

"Okay," Rachel turned off the stove and moved the pot of boiling water to the sink where she poured the noodles into the strainer.

As they ate, LeRoy threw her smiles of appreciation, but Rachel found it hard to return them.

"What happened to your hand?" LeRoy said, pausing before winding more noodles around his fork.

"Nothing," Rachel said. She slid her wrapped hand off of the table and placed it on her lap, where the water made a circle of dampness on her jeans.

LeRoy stared at his plate and frowned, looking like he wanted to say something else, but instead he took another bite of his food.

Rachel let out a sigh. There was no sense in waiting any longer. "LeRoy?" Rachel pressed her lips together briefly before continuing, "there's something I need to tell you."

She had his full attention now, and she decided to focus on the table so that she wouldn't have to stare into the worry on his face.

"Um, its not anything bad," she said quickly, "Its just, a few days ago, my birthmother made contact with me, she invited me to come and see her, so I did and..." Looking over LeRoy's face Rachel couldn't bring herself to tell him the full truth of Shelby's offer. "She wants to be a part of my life, have visits with me and stuff, like a divorced parent would with their kids, and the thing is, I want to see her too."

LeRoy was looking over the table set-up with an expression of disappointment on his face, as he realized the true purpose of the meal. He attempted to mask it before meeting Rachel's gaze. "I think its great that your birthmother is back in your life. How did it go? Is she okay? Are you okay?"

"Yes, we're all fine. She's the coach of Vocal Adrenaline now actually, that's how we met."

"Oh."

Rachel could tell that LeRoy probably wanted more information on Shelby, but he didn't pry and Rachel didn't tell him.

Upstairs, in her room, on her laptop, excitement and nervousness rose up in her stomach as she began her next task. As her computer booted up, she held the slightly crumpled paper from Quinn, where she had wrote down Shelby's email address.

She thought about texting Quinn, asking her for advice or something, but what did Quinn know that she didn't? Many things, but none of them would be helpful in the area of contacting her mom. She had to do this on her own. Quinn would probably agree.

Rachel typed Shelby's address into the bar at the top of the page, then she wrote and rewrote until she got this:

_Shelby,_

_This is Rachel. Next Saturday, I'm not very busy. There is a really amazing vegetarian restaurant at the mall. I really am tired of going there alone, because my friends hate vegetarian food. Do you hate vegetarian food?_

Rachel hated the way the email sounded, but putting "hello" behind Shelby's name sounded too formal, but "hi" sounded too friendly, too informal. The rest well, she couldn't help it, and she couldn't keep editing it, so closing her eyes she pressed send.

The words on the screen changed from "sending" to "sent".

A dark, restless feeling settled in her stomach.

She surfed the web for a computer game as she waited for a response. She found a pretty entertaining one, but kept losing because she impulsively checked her inbox every five seconds.

Her eyes were beginning to feel dry with tiredness when she got a response. She jumped when she saw the reply in her inbox and it took a lot of willpower for her to click on it.

_Hi Rachel!_

_It's so, so good to here from you!_

_I would love to spend time with you next Saturday. Do you want to go to that amazing vegetarian restaurant with me? I have to know what kind of food you've been living off of these past years._

_I love you,_

_Shelby_

The email made Rachel squirm as she read it. It was hard to take in a letter oozing with so much affection. But also with desperation. Quinn didn't even try this hard. Of course she didn't need too. Rachel loved Quinn so much...

Her cheeks burning slightly, Rachel sent Shelby another email with the time and place, even attaching a map and directions.

This time Shelby responded almost immediately.

_That all sounds good to me! _

_But its getting really late..._

_Don't you have school tomorrow? _

_And glee practice? _

_Honey you need to get some sleep, rest up those vocal chords._

_I'll see you on Saturday, and I love you._

Rachel let out a breath of frustration, feeling overwhelmed by Shelby's slightly patronizing words, motherly words. But she obeyed her command and closed her laptop. As she rolled over in bed, she wondered if a part of Shelby really didn't want to see her, and hoped that she would be stood up by Rachel.

On Saturday, Rachel got to the mail early and paced in front of a designer clothing outlet. Every minute that Shelby didn't show up seemed to increase the chances that she wouldn't. Rachel mistook other tall well dressed ladies for Shelby, but when she finally did see her, she didn't recognize her until she was close enough to see the expression on her face.

Shelby wore a large, almost gloating smile as she spotted Rachel. Rachel had to force herself not to bolt as Shelby approached her. Shelby looking so happy seemed more dangerous than Vocal Adrenaline winning Sectionals and becoming their competition at Regionals.

"Hi, Rachel," She was smiling so broadly Rachel thought it must be hurting her cheeks. She held out her arms and it took Rachel a second to realize what was happening before she was enveloped in Shelby's embrace.

The warmth that filled Rachel as her mother hugged her filled her with annoyance at the absolute joy that Shelby had just displayed at seeing her. It wasn't fair that Shelby could fill the holes left in Rachel's heart from childhood when she could just as easily make new ones. When she had been the cause of the original pain. She knew the annoyance was mostly just a defense mechanism against her other, stronger emotion: vulnerability.

"Don't look so disappointed to see me," Shelby said, noticing Rachel's expression. Her feelings must have somehow filtered onto her face.

"Its just normal teenage embarrassment at being seen in the mall with your mother," Rachel lied. Then she realized she had just called Shelby her mother.

Another gleam of triumph shown in Shelby's eyes.

"Don't worry Rachel, I'm a cool mom."

"Right." Rachel laughed.

As they sat down at a table, Rachel's initial annoyance at seeing Shelby wore off and she was hit hard in the gut by a pang of sadness.

"You gotta tell me what to order Rachel, I don't know what any of this stuff is."

Rachel helped Shelby pick out the best tofu stir-fry. They ended up ordering two different things, but it was a Chinese restaurant and the dishes were made for sharing.

"So," Rachel said after the waiter had left, "How's Vocal Adrenaline?"

"Their good," Shelby said, taking a sip of water. "As always, although, they do still have a lot to improve on before Regionals," she smiled, "if your looking to spy on them though, don't think I'll give anything away just because I'm your mother."

"And don't worry, I won't reveal any of the secrets to Finn's dancing."

Shelby laughed lightly, weather she understood the joke or not Rachel wasn't sure. Perhaps Shelby did know a lot about New Directions, perhaps enough to know each of its members by name. Rachel was in the group, so why wouldn't Shelby use her social connections and powers of persuasion to get every detail of information on them that she could? After all she seemed to have made friends with Will Schuester and Tina was still dating Jesse. Tina could sometimes be shy, but never really managed to keep her lips sealed around Jesse. And everyone knew how close Jesse and Ms. Corcoran were.

Shelby looked at Rachel more seriously. "But I don't wanna just talk about glee. How have _you been_ Rachel? Like what's going on in your life?"

Of course Shelby ignored the very likely possibility that Rachel did just want to talk about glee.

"Besides ending my nine-year estrangement with my birth-mother, not much."

"I guess that would be a pretty big event."

"Not as big as spending my childhood running from angry foster parents and ignoring disapproving teachers glares."

"Well, _I _would say that reuniting with my daughter was a _huge_ event in my life. Even bigger than suffering through cancer treatment, which may as well have been a form of torture." Shelby waved a hand in the air like she was brushing away an irksome strand of stray hair.

"Oh really? How was college then _mom? _Let me guess, torturously terrible, I'm so glad I got peed on and shunned and beat-up, so much easier than enduring _that._"

Shelby stared down at the table with a slight grimace, and Rachel realized that her tone had been a bit too grating.

"Look, I'm sorry," Rachel said genuinely. Inwardly she was fearful that Shelby would just get up and leave if she didn't apologize for her continuing attitude. "I-I didn't mean to minimize the obvious pain you went through." She said softly.

"No, Rachel, your right. I'm not mad at you sweetie. I'm mad at myself. Did all of those things really happen?"

"Yes."

"I should have been there for you."

"This is all just a lot to take in. A-and your acting like...like nothing's changed."

"You mean because I'm acting like I'm still your mom?"

Rachel refrained from nodding.

"Rachel, I know you have a lot to forgive me for but isn't there some way that you can let me back into your life? If a complete stranger can just become your parent I don't see why I can't be again."

Rachel was about to ask Shelby what she was talking about but stopped herself, remembering how she had implied that she considered LeRoy to be her father.

They both fell silent and stared down at the table as the food was brought and placed in front of them.

"Thank you," Shelby managed to tell the waiter before she left who smiled warmly in response.

Rachel continued to stare down at the table, she felt tears coming to her eyes.

"Rachel."

She looked up and met Shelby's eyes.

"I _want _to make it up to you. I want to rebuild our relationship. Can you please just give me a chance?"

Rachel looked around at the food with a grim smile. _I am _she thought. But outwardly she just nodded.

"Now, we should eat this food don't you think? It looks delicious."

The rest of the meal reminded Rachel a bit of dinner with Leroy. But this was mainly because looking at tofu was a good excuse to not look at Shelby's eyes. As far as confidence went, she felt like she had done well so far. But the whole situation felt so temperamental. It could all just break and crumble in a matter of seconds. Rachel was afraid that the next time she looked into Shelby's eyes she would be paralyzed. By painful memories and the desire to go back in time and be who she was nine years ago.

When the waiter came with the bill, Rachel reached for her purse. "I brought money." She pulled out a few twenties.

"No, absolutely not. I am not allowing you to pay for this Rachel."

"It would make me feel better about things."

Shelby looked at her for a long time and then sighed. They were both so stubborn. "Fine, but I'm paying for my half, and I've got the tip."

Rachel smiled, "fine." She knew she couldn't fight her more on this one. She could always use the extra money Leroy gave her for cigarettes. She could easily smoke a whole pack after this visit. It wasn't that it had gone badly, necessarily, it was just that it had given her so much energy, sent her brain into a crazed frenzy that she needed to calm down.

"It was really good to see you Rachel," Shelby said as they stood outside the restaurant. "Whenever you want to, email me and we can do something like this again, maybe, maybe I could even take you clothes shopping sometime."

"Okay," Shopping was the last thing Rachel wanted to do, because although she did want Shelby's advice in style, she didn't think Shelby would let her pay for her own clothes, and she didn't like feeling indebted to her.

Shelby pulled Rachel into a hug. A tear rolled down Rachel's face and she quickly wiped it away.

As she turned her back on Shelby and walked away, she was filled with warmth and happiness. She had managed to survive their first lunch together in nine years.

**Sorry about this guys, the update was not for a new chapter but to edit this one. I accidentally posted the wrong version. Its just the Shelby-Rachel scene that got edited. **


	14. Chapter 14:Keep the Conversation Flowing

**Chapter Fourteen**

Blasting music in her room, Rachel felt the gentle buzz of her phone and paused the song. She rested an elbow on a crossed knee and pressed send.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rachel," came Quinn's voice. "How have you been?"

"Good," Rachel hadn't seen her since school on Friday, and it was already Saturday, the hours in between the days was a long wait.

"Listen um...there's this party tonight, you wanna come? With me." Quinn seemed to hold her breath after that sentence. The fact that she had called and not texted wasn't unusual, Quinn loved to hear Rachel's voice, and Rachel loved to hear Quinn's, but the cadence of Quinn's voice, the breathlessness of it, showed she was pretty serious about this invitation.

Rachel stared at her laptop screen (which was resting on her lap) and frowned. She had just sent an email to Shelby confirming that she could go to the mall with her today, afterwards she was planning on coming over to LeRoy's house so she could meet Rachel's father, or at least, her adopted Dad.

The fact that Quinn seemed a bit nervous did not make Rachel's next words any easier. "I really want to Quinn, but the thing is, I-I already made plans with Shelby. I love you and I hate that this has to get in the way of the party but..."

"No it's okay," Sadness and disappointment evident in her awkward rhythm. "I don't want you to feel so much pressure, you should spend time with your mom, they'll be another party," Her voice turned warmer, "I love you,"

A thrill of warmth went through Rachel, and she couldn't help smiling, "I love you too."

As she pressed end, cold guilt touched her stomach, but she tried to shake it off. She needed to prepare herself for Shelby.

Un-pausing her music, she allowed her emotions to be carried away by the strong beat of the drum and clashing sound of guitar.

Shelby was as enthusiastic as ever to see Rachel. Rachel found it a little easier to return her smile. Instead of going to the restaurant for lunch though, Shelby pulled Rachel into her favorite clothing outlet.

"Shelby," Rachel said.

"I know its not what we agreed on."

Rachel didn't like unexpected changes, at least not from Shelby.

"Come on Rachel, I'm your mother. I want to do this for you, besides, their having a big sale." Shelby tugged on Rachel's arm, bringing her a little farther into the racks of sleek, designer blouses and jeans.

Rachel smiled at Shelby doubtfully, the items may have been on sale, but they were still priced a lot higher than what Rachel would normally spend on clothes.

Shelby pulled a dark green blouse off a hook and held it up to herself. "Don't I look great?" She said raising an eyebrow.

Rachel laughed.

"Come on," Shelby tapped her arm, "It'll look even better on you."

Resolve melting, Rachel followed Shelby towards the dressing room. She watched with eyebrows raised half in amusement and half in affection as Shelby pulled various items into her arms as they went, suggesting some for Rachel, some for herself, and mocking others.

Rachel felt childishly eager to try on the clothes her mother picked for her. Standing beside her in the long mirror, while Shelby admired her reflection in a black collared blouse, Rachel watched her and admired their similarities.

"Rachel that dress looks beautiful on you, reds really your color."

Rachel smiled and nodded, looking self-consciously down at herself.

She allowed Shelby to buy her the dress, a blue scarf, and a small brown hand bag. The three pairs of jeans Shelby had wanted to get her though, Rachel declined. She didn't see the point in buying expensive jeans anyway, all skinny jeans looked alike.

"They don't wear out as fast," Shelby said again as they were leaving the store. "One pair of those jeans could probably last you your whole life. At least until you get out of college."

"Unless I got fat and outgrew them."

"With the food your eating? There's no way. The only growing you'll be doing is getting taller, I've still got about three inches on you."

"More like six," Rachel laughed.

They had reached the restaurant, and settled into a booth. The darkness of the restaurant reminded Rachel of the sadness she had felt the last time she had come here with Shelby.

Shelby swallowed, and seemed to be thinking about more serious matters as well. "So, how hard is LeRoy to impress?"

"Don't even worry about it. The first day I was at his house he made spaghetti for dinner, and that was his idea of a fancy welcome meal."

"Really? That doesn't sound very healthy. Especially for a vegetarian."

Rachel backtracked, realizing in her efforts to ease Shelby's nerves she had revealed too much. "Well that was just the first day, after that he always had more healthy vegetarian food for me. I mean they were microwave meals, but who can blame him, vegetarians can be hard for anyone to cook for." Rachel figured Shelby would just assume that he had laboriously prepared the microwave meals for her, and then sat down with her to eat them.

Shelby looked at her suspiciously, taking a sip of water. "Microwave meals have a lot of salt in them."

Rachel tried to think of some insulting comeback, relating to Shelby's nine-year absence, but was somewhat relieved that she couldn't think of one, it allowed Shelby to move onto other topics.

"Relax Rachel, I'm not putting your father under scrutiny," Shelby must have noticed that Rachel's eyes were darting back and forth over the table in thought.

Rachel realized what she was doing and looked up.

"Good, because he's not the one who has anything to make up for." And she had found her insult.

But Shelby just smiled. "Well maybe this _healthy _vegetarian food will begin too."

Rachel smiled back, Shelby was too warm and extroverted to stay upset with for too long. At least while she was around that is. Alone in her room, it was a lot easier for Rachel to summon up buried feelings of hurt and neglect caused by Shelby.

LeRoy had drove Rachel to the mall, but Shelby was driving her back to LeRoy's house. As they crossed the parking lot, Rachel realized how weird it would feel to ride in Shelby's car. They approached a sleek shiny large black car, much fancier than the car she used to drive but similar in size. The inside smelled like cleanliness and leather.

"Do you want an energy drink?" Shelby half joked as she fastened her seat-belt. "There's plenty in the back."

Rachel sat down on the stiff leather passenger seat and reached for her own seat-belt. "No thanks." She really didn't want caffeine rushing through her veins. Something about being in the car made her feel nervous. You didn't usually ride in the car with coaches or teachers. You rode in the car with your mom. The last car ride she had had with Shelby, well, it had been the last car ride she had had with her in nine years. Perhaps that was causing the hard feeling of dread in her stomach.

Shelby turned on the radio, and Rachel was distracted by the noise.

Rachel glanced at Shelby. "I love this song."

Shelby caught her eye and smiled. "Really? I have their whole album, I would have played them for you to help you fall asleep..."

"But the album came out after you got sick."

"Yes." Shelby appreciated Rachel acknowledging her illness rather than bringing up blame for her abandonment, but she didn't want Rachel to feel that she had to avoid the issue either. "After I gave you up."

"Do you have it with you?"

"I have it downloaded. I can connect my iPhone to the bluetooth in a moment, after the song has finished."

Rachel sat back in her seat, beginning to relax as the music played. The seats in Shelby's car even had warmers, and she bent slightly to mess with the dial. She inhaled deeply. She loved the smell of Shelby's car, so fresh and plain enough to not mask the stronger smell of blue flowers and evergreen branches coming from the driver. Even as her seat warmed, the movements of the car sent that traumatized part of her brain on edge, and as much as part of her was comforted by the car ride, another part of her was clenched with terror and glad when it was finally over.

LeRoy looked a bit apprehensive upon seeing Shelby, but he welcomed her inside with his usual friendly smile.

"Wow," Shelby said looking around, "This place is _nice." _She glanced sideways at Rachel who wondered if Shelby's complement was meant as an explanation for why Rachel wanted to stay here. Clenching her jaw, Rachel hoped that LeRoy wouldn't be offended by the implication.

LeRoy laughed off the compliment, "Thanks, my husband picked it out, he was more one for picking houses, things like that were never really my thing." He barely managed to maintain his smile and polite cheerfulness through talking about Hiram.

They moved into the living room and Rachel sat down on the couch for the first time, she usually avoided the living room, it was LeRoy's space, and her room was her own. It felt alien being there. Shelby sat down beside Rachel, unaware of how the space felt foreign to Rachel as well as her.

"Would you like something to drink?" LeRoy offered.

"Water's fine." Shelby replied.

"Are you sure you don't want anything stronger?" LeRoy said over his shoulder, opening the fridge to get ice cubes. "I have a variety of choices."

"What do you have in your selection?"

LeRoy pulled a bottle out of a cabinet and held it up. "How does this sound?"

Shelby glanced at Rachel, "I really shouldn't," she brought her hands to her face in distress. "Oh alright, this conversation might need a little something to help keep it flowing."

LeRoy beamed and began pouring the wine into two glasses. "You want some Rachel?" He joked.

"Yes please." Rachel sighed. Unaccustomed to LeRoy being so friendly with her, it was a relief to relieve some of the tension, even if he was only acting this way because Shelby was in his presence, and he didn't want to appear unfit in any way. It worked to Rachel's advantage, for the sake of pride, she wanted Shelby to believe that the relationship she had with LeRoy, really could establish this natural banter.

Shelby shot her a look when Rachel expressed her desire for alcohol, hands still on her forehead. Shelby lowered them when LeRoy handed her the glass. "Thank you."

"So," LeRoy had seated himself in his armchair, "Its nice to finally meet."

"Yes," One of Shelby's hands had subconsciously slipped onto Rachel's knee, "Its nice to finally meet you as well." Shelby took a large gulp of wine and set the glass down on the coffee table. Her face looked weighed by dread, but as she lifted her hand from Rachel to brush her hair away from her face, she seemed to brush away the expression as well, and a more determined look hardened her features. "I would like to discuss visitation rights with you for Rachel." Shelby now gripped Rachel's hand. "I'm her mother, and I know I haven't been for a while, but I would like to be again."

Rachel could tell that the wine was already having an effect on Shelby, her words a little faster and bolder than her already confident speech, her eyes just slightly glazed.

"I would be happy to discuss setting up regular visits with you and Rachel," LeRoy glanced at Rachel, then looked back at Shelby. "But don't you think we should talk about this more privately?"

"Whatever you have to say you can say in front of my daughter," Shelby raised Rachel's hand up and down as she spoke, "She has a say in this too," she met Rachel's eyes, "I'm actually only seeing her if she wants me too, so its very important that she decides when that is...I already have a few ideas though," she looked back at LeRoy. "Every weekend she could spend the night at my place, every Thursday and Monday we could have dinner together."

"Maybe Thursday and Friday?" LeRoy suggested. "Mondays can be a bit stressful can't they?"

"Mondays are special, Rachel was born on a Monday." Shelby smiled at Rachel and Rachel smiled back curiously, she hadn't known this fun fact about herself. "How about every other Monday, and every Thursday night and Friday night."

"That sounds alright," LeRoy said, "I have to admit that dinners around here aren't too exciting." He met Rachel's eyes with a knowing smile.

"How does all this sound Rachel?" Shelby asked anxiously.

"It sounds great," Rachel said mildly, not wanting to reveal how much the idea of spending so much time with Shelby pleased her. "The weekends though," Rachel said thinking of Quinn, "I don't mind staying with you, but sometimes I might want to do other things, like see friends, is that okay?"

"Yes of course Rachel, that's fine."

Rachel smiled into Shelby's determined face, made harsh only by lines of stress over Rachel, whatever faults lay in Shelby's hopeful eyes, it was a motherly face. Rachel glanced at LeRoy, who, now more than ever she was sure, only wanted what was best for her.

**Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait...hopefully everyone didn't forget that this story existed in the time it took for me to update! I've been a bit busy, but I still have not completed the plot line I originally imagined for this story, so I will probably be updating relatively soon with more. :)**


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